Bluebird: a poem by Charles Bukowski

I'm a fairly regular listener of the Radio 4 programme, Poetry Please and, every now and again, a little gem hits me. Last week, it was a reading of one entitled 'Bluebird' by an American poet, Charles Bukowski. You can listen to the reading by the poet himself on this short YouTube clip I think his voice is wonderfully expressive. Whilst looking for the clip, I came across an animation based on the poem and you can find that here
They are both well worth a couple of minutes of time viewing. OK, I admit that the theme is not particularly cheerful and I'm sure that the fact that the poem resonates with me is open to all sorts of interpretations. I won't indulge in any self analysis but I will say: let's all let our inner bluebirds free.
Here are the words but you really ought to hear the poet read them before forming an opinion on the poem.
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?