Linda Lee

image borrowed from Bing.

Linda Lee

“I loved you like a man loves a woman he never

touches, only writes to, keeps little photographs 

of.”--Charles Bukowski.

Yeah,         I was the one the lasted the longest,

         almost twenty years. 

                  He gave up the sluts, skanks, & barflies

         after he hooked up with me. 

Hell, I buried him.

                

 It was ironic that I used to run a health food

       restaurant, where we had our first date, because

           it turned out I could outdrink him, out swear him, &

                outrun him when his temper flared, all the time loving

           him like a crazy woman. Life with Hank was steamy,

       profane, & existential bliss, all wine, cats, poetry, and

the track--damn he loved the horses. 

He always liked to sit in the same seat

at Santa Anita--they would reserve it for

him; had a sign draped on it, RESERVED

FOR BUKOWSKI.

                                           We met in 1976. I attended one of his

                                           poetry readings at The Troubadour in

                           Hollywood--a rowdy affair--he and the

                           audience would interact, yelling

                   obscenities at each other. Turns out

                   he hated giving readings, didn’t like

         “performing”--but he needed the money.

         Afterward, at the book signing, he gave

me a scrap of paper with his phone number

on it. I gave him mine impulsively.

         He called me two days later. “Is Linda Lee

         there?”--always liked to call me Linda Lee.

                     We decided to meet at my restaurant,

                     but I guess he was nervous because

                               I saw him drive by twice in his blue VW;

                               claimed he got lost, but really he stopped

                                                at a nearby bar--had to get drunk

                                                first.

It is hard to describe the man

in mere words. He lived by words,

but he was a force of nature, he

dwarfed language. I adored him,

but at times wanted to strangle him, he used to say,

          “What matters most is how well you walk through

           the fire.”--and yeah, a woman had to be

           a firewalker to survive within his molten aura.

    

I guess he was a tough character. He could get belligerent

& mean, but so could I. He was moody, sure, but he had a

calm center as solid as a mountain. He hated all religions,

but he was one of the most spiritual persons I ever knew.

When he wrote, he went upstairs to his little room, took a

couple jugs of wine, would sit down at his old typewriter, &

play classical music--he loved Shostakovich & Sibelius. He

didn’t really dig rock music--but Sean Penn became his pal,

& he got introduced to Bono. We went to a U2 concert at

Dodger Stadium. Harry Dean Stanton was with us. They

all loved Hank. Bono dedicated the concert to “Charles

& Linda Lee Bukowski”. I screamed with joy, & peed my

pants with surprise.

He used to give readings at punk rocker hangouts like

The Cuckoo’s Nest and The Golden Bear. The punkers

really were attracted to his “Outlaw Writer” persona. He

hated the Beat Poets, felt they were fakers & fags.

He always said that we were a good match because we

had the Moxy--the ability to endure what life tossed at us

--to fully discover & savor what truth is, what love is--

through the mirror of your mate.

Great poetry can

emerge from wine, angst, cats and

transgressive fiction.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub