Am I to desire you, lover, who teaches non-attachment?
I am tsunami; with violence and duration
My petitions, as in wave shoaling, heighten to break in fists
And sea spray upon your coastline.
Am I to desire you, lover, who speaks of immaterial love?
Alone, to embrace these long, lilac dusk shadows?
When your mouth is tropical water, a sleepy harbor
Of honeysuckle skin and halcyon limbs.
Am I to desire you, lover, who spins parables of reason?
You persuade me that need is only the howling infant,
With softness you cradle my angry wet face
With patience you crouch at the perimeter of this reality
Until I learn to swim in the waters of my ego, relentlessness,
And the miles and miles of longing.
Am I to desire you, lover, who is afraid of the word and the action?
I am sea storm and you are the fishing vessel,
I lap at the port of your manhood and obliterate your resolve
Until you commit to the bow of the word with conviction
And my miles and miles.
This poem is ogiji, sweet fugitive lover,
That my renunciation may suspend in your mind like
The Great Wave off Kanagawa.