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Did you know what you were doing, Basquiat?
With no formal art training, no informal.
It shows.
You yourself would grow defensive
as collectors eyed your work.
Frowning.
Mispronouncing Manibozho
as they ask what the hell that means
to themselves.
Carefully select your words to be tossed on to canvas
splattered with primitive images,
childlike renderings.
I see chaos in your art.
Racial and social tension,
modern mythology and urban ennui.
What drew me to you were the stories
of you,
an eccentric
who before his success
would trade sketches on napkins
for a cup of coffee
or a copy of the Times.
Raised in Brooklyn
on Haitian and Puerto Rican culture.
The only name to come out of the
New York graffiti movement of the early eighties,
but you always thought yourself
better than that.
Slept in a cardboard box in Central Park.
Dated Madonna.
Overly paranoid.
Paid for things by tossing large wads of cash
on the counter allowing the cashier
to count out the bill.
Dead
at twenty-eight
of a heroin overdose.
I can see this in your work.

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