DarkMatter/WALLS: a song a song for tralala

a song a song for tralala /barbara mor 1975/1976/1978/1997/

‘punished, punished, punished for being the object of

hatred & fear & disgust, thru her magic orifices, her

cunt & her mouth, poor tralala’

-- Germaine Greer in The Female Eunuch, 1971

like a dirty dolly sprawled in the

city lot white bruise among tin cans

,broomhandle up her twat here lies

our silly tralala who got just

what she got /late afternoon sun

slanting down over the rust &

smeared flesh ,vacant body in naked

lot among bottles & garbage like

a couch FUCKED by 40-50 guys who

laughed & broke her teeth with

broken teeth she laughed & laughed

,flipping her tits with a drunk

hand /& they split her lip

with beer cans,split her to the

bone bloody doorways

hanging openRipped face Hole

of scum RedHeart tattooed beneath

one breast sez:sorry out of

CHANGE & unstitched smile,blue-

black thighs broomstick up

the cunt ,like she rode to Death

shouting yippeeeee! while night

filled up her eyes o she got

just what she got she was she

got just what she WUZ neighborhood

boys,hot rocks for souls a gutter

to spill their guts & she laughed

& laughed/jiggling her tits splitting

& splitting Herself til

her eyes went dark,& the blood was

dark,& the lot got dark &

lonely among each other & the

boys stopped playing Beat it

home /got some food from

mother

there is a hole in the night in the groin of

Orion smegma clouds of stars line that

tunnel & worlds pour out, suck back in riding

a vast perineum

there is a hole

in the wall of night cheap room in a great

hotel of darkness with stained mattress, musty

smell of the inside you can crawl & hide

there, like a small mouse

a hole in time, a

hole in earth kelpy waters & the brine

of sea-sweat where darkness fluxes & our salt

begins a hole in all the tidal origins

& in the vein where the needle enter, a

hole in the gray moon never filling & a gray

song the thin mother sings you from

her hole of unremembering

a hole in me,

a broken mouth truth comes out, & a breath of

blood winds rotten teeth & spit, & speech

& this song slime, & children & the ocean’s

fish-flow

a hole in me & Orion’s great

hole

‘woman is a temple over a sewer’ said the church

father where blood comes & urine & the birth of

men that hole is a place of terrible darkness said

the skin-drum ‘how can he be clean who is born

of woman’ Job washed himself but the boils grew

& the men slit themselves the length of the penis

inserted a stone called the wound vagina

blood

comes first then night then the starry spine of the

night power is a snake made of blood & stone teeth

that hole in her has teeth smash them out grind

them down ‘every woman should be filled with shame

that she is born a woman’ & slime said Sartre &

all soft, sucking substance feminine existence

which we abhor

& the clitoris is excised the labia

sliced off the legs bound together day weeks

until the wound heals the young girl then pisses

thru a long tube when she marries she is slit open,

sewed shut again to fit the comings & goings of

her husband this is done for reasons of purity &

beauty the female being foul & ugly in her members

& dams are built Aswan Yangtze Colorado to stop

the uncontrollable flow of rivers & a dome is built

in the sky to plug up holes in the wild air

‘& it

is with their genitals that they consort with Devils

& thus bring sin & Death into the world’ ‘the womb

insatiable will suck out a man’s soul all his

vital energy, like a she-vampire beware!’ & there

are holes on the moon said the rocket man explore

them plant a flag, leave giant footprints there &

there are holes in the spirits of the heathens which

can be filled with bullets which can be filled

with fire

there is a hole in this girl walking down

the road get her spread her legs stick in twigs,

coke bottles, bayonets yr prick there is a hole

in the enemy’s defense line launch the ICBM

& there is a hole at the beginning, & the end a

mystery i can’t get thru it must be hostile to me &

the juice flows from all living beings all matter

is alive & aware of touch & can be made to bleed or

sing out, or quiver all matter is alive & shivering

& knows you & may be said to open or close

at yr level

woman, what do i have to do with thee,

said Jesus & they pierced him with a long stick the

soldier, with a sharp thrust opened his side, &

water & blood poured out

they rammed it to him good

½ the world is made EVIL

so the other ½ can transcend

the first ½ is called Woman

the other ½ is Men

if you can get the WHOLE

to believe this

you can rule the world

they said

-----------------------------------

And They Did

boys squat on earth

poke little sticks in dirt

which is cheap they say

as priests of terror

punish a bad mother

jab fear into life

which is cheap they say

armies march into open mouths

to raise dust cries of

pain machinegun unravels

a flesh-blanket to see

at last her skeleton/

a hole pregnant with ore

drill & explore the emptiness

body of time & useable

matter colonize & leach

the wildness a lost soul

puts on boots & kicks

solitude bleeds quiet at

yr feet what is useful

cant refuse the user

is the master /definition

of rape terrorist

bomb stuffed in bodies

of the Other rape pick

lock & smash windows in a

great stone building of

power bums sell pencils

between the crowded thighs

the cop arrests himself

at this door define

earth as gods whore to

buy & sell while holy pimps

wash their hands in

her water righteous men

with red hands worship

at this altar /a

hot career deal & hustle

mother-food safety &

cash little people crouched

in dust children of her

hole are expendable &

songs of slow flesh can be

forgotten dynamos translate

the stars & magic power

is all in the mind robots

wired to virtual games

a boy with a stick in

the brain-hole /&

seas & high birds bears

of the forest are illusions

that drift from her

dumb hole earth is rock

& void & we are rootless

hanging out alien &

mother-lost the worlds a

hole in a junkyard fence

peepshow of the

condemned flesh we watch

a desert fucked for oil

& exploding winds blow

all dreams like dust

we watch lifes cheap

mouth drunk & blood-red

drooling generations of

despair spit lust/

shove her down suck off

this loneliness

that nothing in nature is being without doing that nothing

in the universe is emptiness that the uterus in childbirth

has a 100-lb thrust that a young girl planting corn translates

the stars that all women in the beginning work hard &

are magic that a tree is a root-suck & a sky-penetration that

a tree drinks the sky & pushes air into earth that a she-wolf

is a fair hunter that a he-wolf is the same & the thrust

& suck of oceans restless shark & anemone mouth are one

that all women in the beginning know themselves as magic &

work hard that the womb & the mouth are deep caves where

blood & wind sing to us & are heard that a woman grinding grain

to food transmits the dreams of the stars & a young girl

walking down the road is Orion on the highway & if you misname

her if you beat or rape her she disperses great constellations

of wounds galactic seed rage all the same & will transmute

you back to starry origins in all her bleeding being of

her kind & from the beginning a tree of earth a whole animal

a magic that works

janis wuz a singer /janus

is a god raw voice of

wind,night’s menstrual throat

bleeding /a whore

leans in this doorway &

lets the world go

in & out ,a dried-up old cunt

w/$5 in her pocket

.smashed mouth of earth

wailing waawaawaa

& you need a man to love

you,plug up time’s

lonely hole

janis /moon’s broad face

one of the boys:

tralala stoned

in the neighborhood junkyard

& tralala said

come on come on

shove it to me good

& Death did

a tortured man is a

religion.a tortured female is

acunt who asks for

it,& gets it what she

deserves /crumple it up &

throw herself away

janis,janus in the

doorway.define the difference

of gift &power:

between now

& forever,between woman &

man ,between yearning&

finding: the wind

blows you open,unnames yr

skeleton /a double-edged wailing

spins you around

,& any stud

w/boots on,riding down

that wind’s source any dude

in his time ,yr cradle

for his saddle or

touch on that bone,remembering

song

& the wind got

hoarse,wailing yr wailing

& night lost its voice

in yr cry

.& you wanted to be

Death’s old buddy, fix

jesus on his straight/cross

. turn the world on,strobe-

pulse woman ,

let them see

what their lonely was

.& you wanted to be

one of the guys/

& you wanted to accommodate

the great need.& you

wanted to open up the new

world’s thighs

:pain’s mirror

in yr gay girl’s eyes

/whips,chains needles .strip-

down of hypocrisies ,&

naked play of abandoned

toys /you wanted him

to know:it wuz

okay

o janus /unhinged

two-faced mother: til all

voice was gone

in yr cracking song:

you can work it out on me

you can work it out

on me boys

you can work it all out

on me

tralala laughed &jiggled

her tits,& spread her

cunt wider for

Death

:& the boys in the audience

stomped & whistled,&

threw what they had at

yr wailing mouth

/like country joe said

:they just wanted to see you

shoot up.they

just wanted to see you

stick it to yrself

.like you did

& who is jesus what else

does he do can he sing

can he plant corn i saw

a picture of him once on

the dome of the sky looking

down dark & fierce at the

green earth & who is jesus

what else can he do can

he scrub floors can he make

the bread they say he

suffered 9 hours of pain

for the world tell that

to any mother what man

son of what father king of

what desert saver of what

flesh can he mold pots

can he make the rain come

can he find his way home

naked after being raped

can he wail like janis can

he burn in fire after

2000 years of dying can he

laugh & hand Death a beer

can he smash the last

mirror can he know me who

is this jesus what is

he: next to any womans

blood-red truth no wound

in a man is big enough

to birth a world to

return an earth

so now here is our old mama in the junkyard loosely

laid out arms & legs among the tin cans while the

rust moon rises like a cats yowl

here is our first mama who gave her body for a whole

globe a bellys round bruise in the trash bed while

the stray moon crawls along the nights fence

some flashing saver of our souls luminous in purple

gas above her sells epiphanies of pure cash to the

skyline his glo-light on the garbage falling into

her wide empty eye

& down the street a block or 2 the boys are raping

someone new the air rips the alley bleeds city jism

scums the stars & someone jiggles coins & laughs &

someone sings tralala

but she is on a broomstick riding out of pain & out

of time like the witches rode above the fires &

sleepers ride above their beds tralala rides in

magic dark clouds inside her magic head

where the drunk moon grows wilder & wilder prowling

around the stripped earth & seems to howl out

waawaawaa when you look it straight in the face or

seems to become a hole in the night with the other

side leaking thru streams of galaxies blood song

dreams all shining on the earth below

coda:

the boys cruise the

neighborhood/hustling

door to door. sell

you god sell you oil

sell you TRALALA

the boys bulldoze the

neighborhood/throw

bombs door to door

.blow up soul blow

up world BLOW UP

tralala

overhead: 10 stories tall

the neon jesus /extends his

double cross .arms

spread out to take us all

in when we learn to call

him :boss

at our feet old bloody

mama raw flesh of time

spread out/ in true life

color.in numberless issues

:the centerfold of

earth

* * * * * * *

a song a song for tralala

tralala is a character in Hubert Selby Jr’s major novel Last Exit to

Brooklyn, 1957.

This poem, written in a 1975, was bought in 1976 by MS. Magazine,

under its original editor Gloria Steinem. MS. held on to it for 2 years

without printing it, fearing its ‘violent’ or ‘controversial’ material

might offend readers, or advertisers, or both. In 1978 Mor asked for

the rights to the poem, which MS. returned. ‘tralala’ was then printed

in Karl Kempton’s KALDRON, a visual poetry journal printed in

California and circulated globally to writers and graphic artists. The

poem was read over Berkeley radio in 1978. Twenty years later –

thanks to religious Fundamentalism in America – it continues to

cause some trouble wherever it is publicly read.

Updated wonders of a round world: Used as wrapping/packing paper

by a California smallpress distributor (Sanddollar, I think), KALDRON

copies containing the poem got shipped to UK writer/editor Paul Buck,

then guestediting for a Spectacular Diseases #8, 1985 special issue

‘Sexuality & the Argument of Art.’ Excerpts from another Mor poem

were printed in that issue, & Paul Buck’s correspondence introduced

Mor to the work of Kathy Acker – to my provincial shame, a US feminist

living in NewMexico, I had to correspond with a London Brit to be

made aware of Acker’s genius work. This connection continued to

rhizome into the next generation, when ‘tralala’ was printed in Brit

poet/novelist/editor Ian Taylor’s ecorche #2, 1998: blatantly virulent

religious Fundamentalism in US, UK & worldwide made the poem

even more relevant 23 years beyond its first writing. Too bad: ‘tralala’

has never appeared in a US feminist publication, the venue for which

it was originally written. To quote myself: I am a feminist, but.....

DarkMatter/WALLS

a song a song for tralala

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