Friday poem, Bukowski

bluebird

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but i'm too tough for him,
i say, stay in there, i'm not going
to let anybody see
you.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but i pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but i'm too tough for him,
i say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
europe?

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but i'm too clever, i only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
i say, i know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.

then i put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, i haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but i don't
weep, do
you?

--Charles Bukowski

I had an amazing dream this morning about bluebirds. There were about a dozen or so, playing in the dirt. It was night, and all the visuals of the dream except for the bluebirds had this dark sooty tinge. I was fascinated with the birds and thought of the glass bluebird my mother used to keep on the windowsill above our kitchen sink. I loved it, and these birds were the same exact wild bright shade of blue. (Writing this now, I realize that my mother now keeps that bluebird, which she calls the bluebird of happiness, hidden in a kitchen cabinet of her new home in the Deep Red.) Suddenly I had to protect the birds from a man, an official of some kind, who starting kicking at the birds and making them scurry. I tried to explain to him that this was wrong, but he looked at me, shook his head at my naivete, and tried to explain the rules of why the bluebirds could not play in the dirt, here, at night. He tried to escort me to this airplane hanger where I was supposed to sleep for the night, locked in and protected. But then my mother was there, crying and calling for me, pleading for my help with one of the bluebirds. It had been kicked and was bleeding, about to die. My mother was desperate for my help with it. I told the official to fuck off and physically pushed him away from us. He left, shaking his head. I went to my mother, who was desperately sad and childlike, and explained to her that the bird was dying and she needed to tell it goodbye. I woke up crying. Wow.