An introduction to Charles Bukowski's ‘Bluebird’

From a ruined mask, perched on the heavy hunch of a lumbering vessel, spewed forth seventy and more years of filthy woe and slanderous bellows. Beaten hard and hard to beat, life in the gutter bars, five dollar rooms, relentless heat.

A face as hard as the words it spat, hate wrapped in beauty, beauty cloaked in wrath. But though the black air and sour malt stench which kept guilty hours and only grew thicker, against the grain, a light would flicker, for which the Bluebird would wait and imagine a path. Its cage was strong, had its rules to obey, live by the lights of the night, and bear the shallow day. But the Bluebird would plead ‘til his voice drew thin, and once in solitude its cage would begin... “There’s a Bluebird in my heart that wants’ to get out, but I’m too tough for him.....”