Charles Bukowski is my favorite writer. There was something about him. Maybe it was his brutal honesty, his fankness. Perhaps it was his refusal to sugar coat while still managing to illuminate ugliness under a beautiful light, magically softening it. He transformed mundane into miraculous.
Whatever it is about his writing, his novels and poetry have always struck a chord within me and I cherish them. That’s why a Bukowski poem was the first poem I featured on this blog, last year in June.
So, because I can be sentimental, I’ve decided that each new year of monthly poems shall begin with my main man, Charles.
I picked a personal favorite last year; this year I'm picking everyone's favorite! If you've read it a thousand times, it's always just as good as the first time. If this will be your first time, welcome to loving this poem!
Not only Bukowski's most famous poem, Bluebird is also one of the most famous American poems of all time. If you’ve got a heart, you’ve probably got a bluebird in there. We can all relate; we can all hear him singing a little in there.
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 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?
I came across this little animated snippet inspired by the poem; it’s a project by an art student called Monika Umba. It's nice so I thought I'd share it with you.
I chose this year's Bukowski poem for Jan Peppler, a woman who knows an excellent poem when she reads one!
Do you have a favorite poet? What was it about their poetry that captured your heart? Which of their poems is your favorite?
I love this poem. Have for several decades. And the animated short is beautiful.
Ranier Maria Rilke - Love Poems to God - is one of my favorites. Almost everything by Mary Oliver. When I was younger, Emily Dickenson. And TS Eliot's Four Quartets was the first poem to rock me to my core, along with Alfred Prufrock.