The Immortals, Part 2

In writers, alcoholics equal genius. 
Well, sometimes...
Now, if that was our motto, we'd all be homeless and fighting over park benches.
I like to think that, for some of us, that creative genius germ will infect us inevitably; chomping into our bodies, bursting into our brains...in whatever state it happens to find us. Cancer included.

Charles Bukowski (1920-1994) was a cult poet.

He lurked in the underground, sleeping in cheap hotels, drinking and gambling with society's rats. His poems were offensive to most critics and terrifying to the tidy beau monde of the 20th century; Shockingly bald and sexually explicit. The free verse style he used ran true to the way he lived his life--unbridled and erratic.
Yet not unlike the rapidly changing times the war drove in, Charles' honesty was becoming hard to ignore. His words sprung from the grimy slump of urban life, the absurdities of humanity, and the irony of death.
He died of leukemia in 1994, leaving behind a collection of works that helped shape free speech in modern literature. See Run with the Haunted (1993) and Flowers, Fist and Bestial Wall (1959).

Just when I thought poetry was about beautiful things like daffodils and sunsets, I caught a glimpse of Charles' ghost cackling at me in a dark corner, hiccuping between slugs of whiskey. 
Twenty years later and his poetry is still making people clear their throats uncomfortably.
So just for us gentler souls, sing away, little Bluebird (The Last Night of the Earth, 1992)...
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 ****s 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?