Bukowski’s ‘Bluebird’ still flying high
Some thoughts on The Bluebird, by Charles Bukowski.
First, here’s the poem
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?
This is the best thing I’ve read in a while.
We all have our bluebird, I think. Mine appears when I write. Otherwise, he’s pretty quiet in there; he needs coaxing out. But I always know he’s there, and that I haven’t been that good to him over the years. You know – money, jobs, the rest; the stuff that becomes our lives, whether we sign up for it all or not.
Soul-destroying jobs have been a thing for some time now. We know them, a lot of us have done them; we receive their bounty through our letterboxes these days. In my early twenties, I worked in a beer factory, on the production line, for a couple of years. I did eight hour days, the guys I worked with were smart, funny, good company. Our bosses were decent people, all in all. I went out nights and spent my beer money and had a good time. My soul survived, I think.
Work needs to be done; none of us gets a free ride. But how much work? For how long? The bluebird needs time, space, some kind of peace, at least; how is any of that possible with sixty-hour weeks, mortgages, children nuclear-familied to distraction, their tiny bluebirds crying out for flight? Where does the bluebird get to perch in today’s gig economy? How are our third world bluebirds getting on?
Lockdown has let me write. My bluebird’s happier, I can tell.
Different peoples’ bluebirds want different things. Over the weekend, we went on the Buxton Garden Trail, a walking tour of local gardens. It was great. Some of them, you wouldn’t think Buxton big enough to hold them, these hidden estates; others, tiny jewels of planning, love and care. And yes, the gardeners’ bluebirds flew, for sure. If I squinted, I could just make them out, flitting in the creative air. Doing their bluebird thing.