Today my skirt is too big & my shirt is too small & I'm pretty hungover because after the Bukowski movie we felt like having more than a couple of drinks. I don't know why I wasn't expecting much from the Bukowski movie, but it was fucking fantastic. It was one of the best movie-going experiences I've had in awhile. I'd forgotten how much I loved some of his poetry, & before that I had hardly seen any footage of him. It was amazing to see him buttoned up in a funny old-man shirt, sitting on the couch with a beer or something, crooning "How can you be so meeeeeeaaaan to me?" to his girlfriend Cupcakes. He's really so startlingly ugly & lovely & funny & sad. We were laughing almost the entire time, except for one uncomfortable scene where he kicked his wife away from him on the couch, & when he talked about his childhood, & at the end when he read one of my favorites, the poem about the bluebird, & I got pretty teary. So it goes like this.
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?
