{{{Charles}{Bukowski}}}

Here's one more selection from the poetry I've been reading over the last year or so: Charles Bukowski (1920-1994). At least a year ago I'd seen a documentary entitled Bukowski: Born into This. Shortly after that I picked up The Last Night of the Earth Poems. I had heard of the man. The things that are said of him are true. To say that he is outrageously rough around the edges would fall very short. Much of what he said and did and wrote hold great potential for blushes and offended feelings. However, reading poems like the bluebird, and having a sense of his backround, I find him endearing despite his many faults. For all his crass, drunken sputterings, he is a very good writer. He had a simple cleverness and made readers of more hard-livin' blue collar folk than probably any poet ever did. His poetry is direct and very prose oriented. The below poem is in fact unlike much of his stuff in that it makes use of literary devices much more liberally. Enjoy

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Gonna Find Me a Bluebird - Skeeter Davis & Porter Wagoner
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the 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?

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