Bluebird by Charles Bukowski | Poems Rethabile Likes
Bluebird
by Charles Bukowski
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 still 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?
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 still 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?
Comments
Chris Abani
“My writing, it’s my way of making sense of everything. My way to feel whole. May I never be complete and may I never feel content – please, let me always have the need, always have the urge to write. ”
― Charlotte Eriksson
Psalm 45:1: "My heart overflows with a pleasing theme; I address my verses to the king; my tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe."
The grace to endure, to survive, that is what Bukowski has taught me. On the days and nights when it is traversing a hellish terrain to write, I remember Linda vacuuming in another one of his poems. Linda, his wife. All poets, male or female, long for redemption to overtake the sacrifice that comes with grief, heartbreak and the longing to belong.
Nothing like a morning sipping green tea, and reading a poem by Charles Bukowski. How this man taught me to endure, and to survive the inconceivable, and unfathomable! Thank you Bukowski. I sing your praises and I am grateful for your gifts. You taught this female writer and poet to sing and pen good fights.
“You will be taken for granted.
You may be hurt to your very core, and still be asked to give a little more!
Adiela Akoo, Lost in a Quatrain
“Words are the clothes of a numinous body that comes back like song – an ungraspable dream." — From The Butterfly Poem by Silke Heiss
Your dreams, Bukowski, my hymns!