Poetry
Carolee Schneemann
Like Totally Like
Speaks. Language. Who will speak for language?
The integrity of a single statement? It’s like my astute friends speak like totally awesome like to breathe the sentence is like totally spasmed.
As If—not As IF—but like and you know I am sending you a message like awesome have a good one you know.
Like over your meal; are you still working on it… ? I’m doing good (not doing good)…
As if there is no metaphoric precision.
Like the mind chewed like like chewed into not As If and not I’s, but like. Like what?
I state my like premise, but like it’s not the real like thing. The like is actually not a referent. Nevertheless this like fragment is like so totally where am I to be in your fractured meanings? Your mind’s spastic microchips invading my mind. Which like underwhelms what your thought needs as weight surety certitude is not like IS but them my own concentration like gets tossed by your litany of interference, inference, the interjection…which has no conscious purpose or, is it to like totally undermine your authority?
And it will never release, never resolve the valley girl video sprechstimme has invaded
structure, rhythm, phrasing. This endless and irregular hiccup by which you both control
and fracture our hearing. A passive expression like "Hey you don’t like it?" So don’t listen. Fuck you. Or am I like weaving you into my uncertainty—like you can’t get clear—like we are totally the boat is tipping like unstable.
Carolee Schneemann is one of the pioneers of performance, installation, and video art. Her most recent book is Imaging Her Erotics (MIT Press) which features a selection of her essays, interviews and projects.
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