Word-fore-play — Recipe for Love 1995

Poem, English, unpub­lished 

This short love poem is a humorous but passionate string of word fore­play oriented around oral and aural desire, culi­nary, with a sensed jazz rhythm beat.

***

Ury has also created other artworks that might be consid­ered visual poetry. Moving Message 1992, incor­po­rates an LED sign displaying the words: you are why; Sonata in Sea 1999 – 2000 is a photo series combined with poetry and wrestle­with­y­ourangel 2001, is a neon sign produced together with the neon sign neonazi 2001; the title of a double photo portrait lesser is me more or less 2003 plays on the name of the German Post-Impres­sionist Lesser Ury, as does the title of a further double portrait or else 2007, which refers to the German writer Else Ury. The title of a third photo-portrait Beelze­bu­larin 2005 (in the Promised Land series) reveals itself to be an anagram of the biblical Bezalel Ben Uri. half dimen­sional — semi detached 2010, combines the first of the half dimen­sional poems with the photo­graph semi detached.


concrete – a collec­tion of works (including poetry series)

Word-fore-play — Recipe for Love

no thyme
though there was no thyme
it was mint to be
to be quite candied
in no thyme
I knew
no thyme to rue

you took my caraway
berry my sorrel
you scent the spirits
reigned on my dessert
cherry the memory
a floury dill

pump
pump it
pumpkin
got a cress on you
impro­vise, jam the beet
root with me

we got curried away
a hot date
fig-uratively speaking
we made a meal of it

the chips are down
at the sauce
at the kernel
I pine for you

roll me over
liquorice
suck ice
skimmed milk skin
pour pawpaw
your tears treacle
a salt on the senses

Tanya Ury, September 1995

Mid Summer

When we were done
I held your ghost
inmost
cupped in my chest
suspending awareness,
before breathing out,
in case of doubt.

But it had gone to our heads
the smoky tokes
and self-centred liqueurs,
melan­choly alcohol,
exhaled in mist
its meaning twisted.

Although it had been a generous repost
we had made no provi­sions for this,
losing our heads in the bed we made
lying among blan­quettes of dead meat now.

I baste your brow with crushed lips,
You brush away bits of bruised fruit.

What had been a mouthful
Med red,
and pink rosé,
like spilt ink
tells it all retrospectively:
red blood and piss gold,
a show down on shared sheets.

No mèdal­lions for our pillow talk;
grilled sentences
skew­ered by silence
and the rapid exchange of fire and fluids.

Love was game
a rare bite of breast
and horn of plenty
saving face,
baked blind,
gorged, without grace or good fortune.

What went down well
on the Sabbath
has an uncer­tain aftertaste;
common sense has desserted
on Sunday -
Monday, mourning.

Tanya Ury, November 2005 


Presen­ta­tion

2006 (25.3.) Trav­el­cook­book, slide reading of short stories with menu, Propeller, Friedrichshain, Berlin (D)
2013 (31.10) Samhain – house concert with Kasander Nilist (double bass), free impro­vised music, read­ings and poetry, Grosse Brinkgasse 16, Cologne (D)

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