You Don't Know the Scene - poetry by Ariel Riveros

What makes me a scene alien?

I'm in no way a nationalist 

I count myself as super-cosmopolitan

I didn't go to a well-to-do-school

I amble about philosophy and physics

That's as "natural" as I get.

Naturalised for nationhood yippee

The only thing I can boast about travel is that its corporate style has killed creativity

I don't know about indie, at all

But I know some but that was a passport for some bullshit clique cool re: cosmopolitanism. It will always be cliquey and white even if contrarian.

I don't fly a national flag and they're indeed ancient curses or for obstacle courses. Re: naturalisation and more rites of passage containers for imperialism.

Don't forget imperialism. It's a flag. Flagging its flagging exhaustion. No stovepipes. I'm squat. 

I can be sublime, technical, contemptuous, I deride the scholar who gushes over the populist as well. Writers who ghost for nation builder shockjocks. For free. 

Poseurs are my enemy due to said squatness. Classical music poseurs are the worst when all they flash is Bach Mozart and Beethoven and claim the flag of darmstadt. Cringe. I do that well. I'll take the chequered flag as my nation. 

That last sentence was pretty extemporaneous and awesome. But that's just part of it. Now time to go out and capture myself in another time.