Revisiting the Bluebird
A poem
Dedicated as a fan poem to Charles Bukowski’s poem: Bluebird
There is a bluebird
In my heart;
It can not escape and
I hide it from others.
In there, hidden away
From everyone else,
This bluebird
Stays concealed;
And I like it that way.
I shake its cage, I scream at it,
I hope that it will die…
One day,
But it doesn’t. It keeps on
Singing in there;
Even against my best efforts,
It sings…
There is a bluebird
In my heart;
I don’t know how it got there
Or why it is still there
But it is.
I opened its cage, fully knowing
This bluebird could leave,
Never to return;
All the better, really.
The door left open but…
This bluebird,
Offered freedom from its jailer,
Stays in its cage, in my heart.
This bluebird keeps on singing,
Even against my best efforts.
There it is,
This bluebird
In my heart.
I wish he’d leave but he won’t;
We are cursed together,
I guess…
For now.
— The Why —
Charles Bukowski is one of my hero-mentors. As such, I could not help but take his piece Bluebird and make my own fan-poem.
Much like Bukowski, I have a soft side beyond my rougher exterior. A little bird inside me that I host but fear letting it be heard. I have tried to let it out and be free, away from me, but it stays within me and sings and sings. I wish it would leave, let me just hide and fake being happy, but it won’t. It sings and sings and reminds me with each song that… it is still in there wishing to sing from my own voice to the world outside.
In respect to my hero-mentor, I wrote a poem response to his own poem called Bluebird, and… I hope that he would have liked it.
Bluebird by Charles Bukowski: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yhi6y1XWb-E
Be well, my friends.
— MT
— Extra—
— Other Works By Moony —
