Rocksong

Golnoosh Nour

• Publisher: Verve Poetry Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781912565627
• eBook ISBN: 9781913917746
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

'Rocksong is a shamelessly baroque ride through the all nadirs and summits of the contemporary queer. It's a decadent book, where decadence isn't a cipher for self-indulgence, but a fierce and fugitive resistance. As Audre Lorde writes 'We survived and survival breeds desire for more self'. Or, in the glowing neon precincts of Rocksong, more selves, plural. These poems flirt and confront in turns, they seduce and attack, they are tender and grotesque. They create a strangely exultant burlesque on identity, sexuality, desire and language. I love them for that.' Fran Lock

DRUMS
(Songs of Selves)

Ode to Self

We survived and survival breeds desire for more self.’ - Audre Lorde

I am that

the fatigued knight wading through the morning light

like Moses gaping the Nile

I am that

the black rose in winter, dead

butterflies dripping from my bruised petals.

I am it

The ‘it factor’, the cool factor minus, the cold factor plus, the hot

mess, the browned flesh, the queer crushed

by Authority, forever refusing to agree with anything

other than my own elegant violence, my

autumnal tendencies that I catch in the river of my mirror – the only truth teller

for I am that,

the breathing painting in the attic

the ‘darling’ collector

the cold sore in summer

the sore throat in spring

the allergy screeching at the skin.

I am it

the blue silk with a scarlet kernel,

wrapped in my gold cape, embroidered by thorns, I pounce

over the fence into the abyss to caress

my horns, and to plant myself in fertile soil, roots hard in the ground;

shaking of tornados from my trembling naked branches, I grow tall,

old, skyward, enamoured, pure.

A Peacock Is a Poem

After Aubrey Beardsley

A silver platter embroidered with gold

ashes. A poem is not a poem if it doesn’t

weep gilded decadence. A poem is not a poem

if it doesn’t look like a slender boy in a peacock

skirt. It is not a poem if the boy does not claim

to be Venus. It is not a poem if Venus does not

stay awake until dawn, coiffing her hair. It is not a

poem if Venus does not behead religion.

It is a ballad when religion bleeds obsidian stones

It is an epic when religion apologises and Venus

spanks it with her diamond whip. Religion writhes in blood,

asking for more. But our boy, Venus gets bored.

She takes of her peacock skirt, displaying her crystal

penis. Religion gets aroused, excited even, but Venus

throws his severed head in her golden bin, alongside a few saints

and prophets, who are all pleading, bleeding, in vain.

A poem is only a poem if it’s a naked woman seeking

Lovers. A poem is only a poem if it’s a many breasted dragon

Her breasts covered with crimson damask, and strewn with

gay flowers; irises, columbines, carnations.

A poem is only a poem if it’s a decadent diamond

It is not a poem if it doesn’t wear a peacock skirt

It is not a poem if it does not display a silver tray of sex and the grotesque.

A poem is not a poem if it doesn’t destroy itself.

A poem is only a poem if it’s an ivory piece

A poem is not a poem if it doesn’t tease with the memory of a grotesque

dream – or a charming nightmare.

A poem is not a poem if it’s not a curious tale.

A poem is a sonnet if it crushes iambic pentameters.

A poem is an elegy if it celebrates decadence

It is a sestina if it knows the dance of the seven veils

It is an ode if it mocks its object of desire.

A poem is a poem if it writes letters to its critics patronising them to tears.

A poem is only a poem if it escapes the injustice of juries and

the shuffling of dealers. A poem is not a poem if it claims

Shakespeare for its favourite poet, Beethoven for its favourite

composer, and Raphael for its favourite painter.

A poem is only a poem if it doesn’t confess.

A poem is a true poem if it’s a mad woman beheading prophets.

A poem is a poem if it’s a valiant warrior, wrapped

in peacock feathers.

Infected Parrot

I have no place to stay.

My bed is overflowing with boys,

my mind with girls.

Gender is a performance

I repeat, like an infected parrot.

I am an eternally inebriated animal,

hence my bed is hollow, my mind an asylum

filled with refugees who will be deported

back, back, back.

To war.

But we have no place to go.

My bed is broken and

even though my mind is blooming

like a European Museum of Contemporary Art

I know I cannot stay.

I do not know about the refugees,

I am an international student,

paying, not to be a threat

to nation...

Table of contents

• Cover
• About the Author
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• BASS (Songs of Home)
• VOCALS (Songs of Desire)
• DRUMS (Songs of Selves)
• A Manifesto: The Future Is Queer
• Acknowledgements
• About Verve Poetry Press