The retreat began the day after Christmas, it was cold and wet and the day before I had just pigged out on turkey, ham, potatoes, plum sauce, pudding and wine. This was how it was back then. Every Christmas you had to tell a story. Mine was of a time after my mother died. Lonely and out of work due to stress I wandered the streets of my working class town guilty with the knowledge that I depended on handouts. Religion was for the birds and in my own way I was like Paul before he was Paul. I used to persecute those weak patronising Christians like I was Pilate himself. This day I saw a sign outside a church offering hampers for Christmas. I walked in and an old man spotted me. His name was Bill and we struck up a conversation about life in general and he asked if he could see me again at my house. Over coffee Bill asked if I was doing anything at Christmas and I told him I was going to have a quiet one at home, no fuss, no big deal , after all Pilate wasn’t a Christian. He must have been in his eighties , tall and wirey with a hangdog sort of look. Very gently he asked if I would like to come to his house for Christmas, good food, booze, maybe make some new friends. The next day I rang him to say I accepted his generous offer . On Christmas day I wandered over to his house. Bill introduced me to his wife Mary and they showed into the living room where about ten, maybe twelve sat around laughing ,drinking. The food was out of this world. I got talking to the others at the table and not one knew Bill or Mary. Here we were like in the last supper getting stuck into the turkey and the rest like disciples of Jesus . I can’t get that moment out of my head. It’s over forty years now and the old couple are probably side by side in some cremation plot and I well life keeps ticking along. There is a world within a world where all sorts of characters come to you at a certain time in your life. I’ve been greeted by junkie angels of wisdom, hermits of God, Buddha lumberjacks, even a Stalinist Joe who all offered some form of kindness. It can come in a double rainbow in the high country with friends or a passing rosella flashing across my friends coffin. They say we live in the age of Kali when spirituality is on the wane replaced by consumer greed and Aristotle logic . Even Bukowski that drunken old sod took up transcendental meditation near the end of life. When I hear his poem ‘ Bluebird’, I know this guy was more than just a poet. Buk was teacher and friend….

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 up 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?

by Charles Bukowski.