Buccaneers: “Hollywood Africans,” 1983
By Myronn Hardy
Not Los Angeles but Boston
we are allergic to pollen.
We don’t smoke tobacco but
I’m sure an ancestor did
in a field after the field
work after the turn from sun
after pondering the pale
pink blossoms like bugles she
may have thought.
I’m distant inside
of the yellow its
glare its toil.
I turn away from it
not a hero but the quiet one
dissolving. That’s my self-portrait.
Here not here excluded.
Two of Basquiat’s artsy New York City
friends were his buccaneers in Los Angeles.
They all missed New York City.
They all smoked.
They all played music.
Not banjos like us
something more electronic something
always spinning.
I’m spinning even though still.
My mind is a pinwheel.
I read the world.
