BUKOWSKI, LINDA KING AND SHEL SILVERSTINE AT SANTA CRUZ

I am trying to learn how to up load pictures on my blog and they are all failing to come up. This one finally took, so I guess I will have to write a blog about my trip with Bukowski to a Santa Cruz reading that was for Prisoners in Mexican Jails. He agreed to go along if they would also book me. He need me to make sure he got home again alright. Allen Ginsberg, Jack Micheline and many other famous poets were reading at this event. I think we had been separated, as well, and this was suppose to be a "get back together" event. I remember reading, A Cock, my then semi-famous poem. The Berkley Barb wrote about me.

A COCK

What is it?
A Cock is nothing
But a cock
Plop, plop, plop
What's that?
There's nothing that important
About going up and down in and out
It can produce a few seeds
That can grow into a million babies
Who wants a million babies?
Who even wants one more?
The most important thing
It does is pee
That's hardly noble
A cock is nothing but a cock
When it's soft it looks like
An overgrown worm creature
When it's hard it looks like
An over healthy mushroom
Why men think it is so important
I'll never know
They want you to look at it
Pet it, kiss it, love it, suck it
Even treat it like it's got a mind
When all on earth it can do
Is go up and down, in and out
Shoot a little juice
Juice that isn't even tasty
Oh, it might have a few proteins
But you couldn't' sell it
Even to a health food store
And they drink everything
And the worst part
If that juice gets inside
It produces something like
The big Daddy it came from
Growing up thinking
The same way
...Mommy, look at my pee, pee
...It's hard, hee, hee, hee
...Even at the age of two

A cock is a cock, nothing more
...I might add, nothing less
..Linda King

I have to give credit of that last line to my friend Dave in Phoenix. He came up with that line. I added it later.

At this reading Bukowski got very, very drunk, insulted one and all including Ginsberg. I just had a new hair cut, and once drunk I don't even think he recognized me. I said aloud, several time, to myself that night as I walked around at the party. I am LINDA KING....not Charles Bukowski's girlfriend. When he fell down, I let someone else pick him up. I tried to enjoyed the drunken show. I turned my back on someone explaining what was happening to Bukowski in the bathroom. At the motel I slept in the chair. Bukowski demons were out that night. They don't make good bedfellows. It was close to the end for us.

BANKSTER, LIEYERS, ORGGAGE COMPANIES
INYOURPOCKETFORSURANCE, COUPERATIONS,
HELPYOURSELFCARE AND THE SHOCKMARKET

If BANKSTERS stopped stealing our funds
Charging excessive late fees
Charging more interest than
Your house is worth

If LIEYERS told the truth in court
And color didn’t land people in jail
If our HALL OF INJUSTICE weren’t fine factories
With people lined up a half a block long
Arbitrated to pay excessive fees
With no transparency about that money

If INYOURPOCKETFORSURANCE were not
Also, in the game to raise your rates
With the smallest infraction charged and
Laws making mandatory insurance everywhere

If ORGGAGE companies
Stopped adding compound interest to home loans
And charging outrageous refinance fees
And would, deduct house payments, honestly
From the beginning of the loan
If our lawmakers would put a cap on interest

If HELPYOURSELFCARE didn’t do unneeded tests
Inflating the bills for Medicare or Medicaid
Transferring your savings to their coffers
Until most ill people’s have nothing left
If drug company and hospitals didn’t overcharge

If THE SHOCKMARKET stopped inside trading
And pocketing your saving by phony IRA’s
Which are a gamble, as sure as the Rolette wheel
Many people having no say about their own money

Then maybe, just maybe, the common man
Could make it on even a minimum wage
With a small house to live in and saving in tact
And the American dream could come back
With Construction happening and jobs available

Forget about recouping anything from the COUPERATIONS
Capitalism has them in a strangle hold
They’re going to make money
No matter what country they have to do it in
USA people be damned. Only the devil may care.
…Linda King - 2/15/2011

BANKS,INSURANCE AND THE AMERICAN DREAM

When I divorced in 1970
I couldn’t get a credit card
Even though I had money
In the bank from an inheritance
Everything had been
In my husband’s name
Finally one called First Card
Took a chance on me
Then came the years
Where every bank
Wanted everyone to have
Their credit cards
And we all paid off one card
To get another with cheaper interest
At least for 6 months
You could buy a house
If you had a down payment
The banks were already
Earning enough interest
But got more and more greedy
They didn’t want just interest
They wanted compound interest
added up by the day,...the minute?
Always taking their cut first
They didn’t want customers
They wanted slaves to the bank
Possibly lifetime slaves
7% become 10%
The 15% even up to 25%
Until you were paying
More in interest on the house
or credit card than money borrowed
or the price of the house
And getting even more greedy
Banks, along with the mortgage companies
Began approving house
For people they knew
Couldn't pay the payment
Let alone the escalating payment
Due in two or three years
And then, there was the $5000 refinancing
And the buy-downs and paperwork
That was half and inch thick
The normal man didn’t try to understand
He just signed, and signed and signed
What did he care he had nothing anyway
So how could he loose anything?
The Bank and the Mortgage Company
And the Insurance companies
Were all schemed to make money together
Flood, fire, earthquake, disaster
Insurance made mandatory
Of course, they paid Lobbyist
After all, aren’t we all
Working on the American Dream?
Then comes the time you walked away
From a house you have been
Paying on for twenty years
But never owned
Well a$30,000 home
Change to $59.000
And $59.000 to $83,000
And $83,000 to $135,000
It could have been $280,000
It was appraised for that
Mortgage approved, bank stamped
Now, we are all into GREED
Just like the banks…why not?
Just like our politicians, our courts
Like health care, unions, corporations
Doctors, dentist, drug companies
You name it…Capitalism
Running amok to any country
Who will take lower wages
And accept lower taxes
It’s the America way

And like the banks
I,too, wanted my share
I am getting old
My Social Security check tiny
So when the collectors call
Telling me what I owe
The house, now, in foreclosure
And my flood insurance in the rear
House insurance tacked on to the loan
Double/triple, plus, late fees over late fees
That can never be stopped
Everything is compounded
What can I say
I’ve been deregulated
Money has lost it’s value
They wouldn’t talk to me
Now I won’t talk to them

When trapped, being kindly, I say
“My dear, if I were to pay
All of those bills, late charges
And insurances you are asking me to,
You, darling, would be out of a job
Employment is, sorely, needed
In America right now. Thank you.”
And I hang up

THIS from a woman
Was never late until 2007
…Linda King 2/2011