Summary

The poem begins with the bluebird reluctantly living in Bukowski’s heart and straining to get out and be seen by the rest of the world. Bukowski’s reason for keeping the bluebird where he is is that he is too tough for him, meaning he is too tough for this tender part of himself to be exposed to others. He tells the bird he needs to stay where he is and cannot be seen by anybody else. To keep him there he “pour[s] whiskey on him and inhale / cigarette smoke / and the whores and the bartenders / and the grocery clerks / never know that / he’s / in there” (9-15).

In the second stanza, Bukowski repeats the starting three lines from the first stanza, reminding readers “there’s a bluebird in my heart that / wants to get out / but I’m too tough for...