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.