Poem of the Week, week 17: Triztan Vindtorn "I Want To Touch You"

I WANT TO TOUCH YOU

I want to touch you
as the sea’s timid fingertips
touch the sandy shore
pluck stars from your damp hair
as each moment becomes a jewel …

I want to dance cheek to cheek
with the wind and pick a bouquet of trees
be clothed in languid starfish rays
and, like a sea lion, hide under the water’s shield
where the rays change into to a rainbow …

I want to be the music on a long-playing disc
made from grains of sand
lick the bones of my lips bare
and let my mouth savor each velvet tone
as the spinning plows up the grass …

I want to be an armada at sea
that gives every object value
like painted bodies that bathe without shame,
let each passion freely breathe
as the pattern slowly comes alive …

Triztan (Kjell Erik) Vindtorn

Translated by Nadia Christensen in Scandinavian Love Poems, An anthology by Fritz König and Randi Marie Røsnes, Eget forlag, Drammen, 2007, p. 87.

See the poem in Norwegian

Poem of the Week

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