Lost in the sea, among the dunes of blue,
A drowning man was writing a haiku.

A poem hard to write and hard to read,
It was about our end, life’s last decree.

And why was he writing? A dying man—
It was his passion, and his only plan.

He swam to no avail, and tried to live,
But life would rarely listen and forgive.

He thought about his childhood, joyful days,
And if he’d live to see the morning haze.

But nightfall had arrived, this world he’d flee;
And truth he spoke at last, for I am he.

Adrift in dark and foreign tides of time
I sought to live among the winsome stars.
Between the shadows of the elder moon—
In mountains lost from any source of light—
I wandered lost below the purple sky
Unmoved by that well-expected night.

Oh fate that leads to live the dawn of night!
Oh life, that filthy pool to squander time—
But what a joy to see the starlit sky!
The sun consuming dust from foreign stars,
To see the ocean's mirror cast out light—
Project an image of our lovely moon.

Indeed I feel I hide behind the moon,
In shadows cast by dreadful ghosts of night:
And curse my eyes if I walk into light.
Forgotten shores of childhood lost in time,
Embracing seas of solitude in stars—
A well-known fate in death of burning sky.

Will death thus raise me to the highest sky
Or drive me to the loudest raging moon?
I’d rather find diversion in the stars,
Forsake my wisdom of that sacred night
Than face the painful claws of passing time—
I find demise when I stare into light.

I was revealed the mysteries of light,
Yet hide below the comfort of the sky
As I transcended boundaries of time,
Forever hidden in the woeful moon
And blind upon that everlasting night,
Hunting pleasure in the short-lived stars.

Illusionary joy, deceitful stars:
You guided me to death away from light!
And whence was born this novelty called night?
I thought that safety reigned below the sky,
That I could hide from truth behind the moon—
I curse the painful wings of passing time.

When sunless time arrived upon the sky,
And Moon became a frozen lake of light,
Woe to me, whose night devoured the stars.

When I did sail across the boundless sea
Through waves and wondrous shores, and wayward winds,
I traveled into earth's philosophy,

And saw the ocean’s daunting thrills,
Its majesty become a living thought—
At nature’s host I did but hardly glimpse.

I only wish to see what beauty wrought,
From shoreless seas to forests, meadows, leas,
And many sights that held me overawed.

That endless dream I now no longer see,
For I’m in glory’s blindness now confined,
And now I pray to once again be free.

When I do close my eyes one final time,
I only wish to dwell in nature’s shrine.

Do you feel joy when joy has left the world?
Do you know all the mysteries of life
That fate bestows upon our flimsy heart?
The noise of crowded streets and busy days,
The wails of suffering, the cries of pain;
The sighs of love abandoned and of death,
The tears that fall when innocence is lost—
The endless joys of youth and of old age,
The laughter children laugh from day to day;
The day of birth, the night to pass away—
These songs that every day we sing again
Are those that that sing of pure humanity.

For what is joy without a mournful day,
And what is life without a time for death?
And what is peace, and purity and hope
Without the perils of despair and woe?

Now turn your heart to transcendental gleam,
And close your eyes to live that endless dream.

Your eyes beneath the summer breeze,
Your glance before the mountain range,
A philosophic walk through earth,
Your heart inspires me to change.

A change of heart, a sudden turn,
My soul has left and come again.
And though with flames my passion burns,
I must show patience and restraint.

The second act of my own play:
The second I read out your name
I knew that something was at work,
A Holy plan, so I proclaim.

I see you with a solemn glance,
While I pretend my heart is yours,
Yet trapped as in a lovesick trance,
I realize I'm by my own.

Will it ever change, my fate?
Or shall I be confined in love's
Unending forest, and await
In lonely tides without your love?

I pray that I don't just move on,
But live with you in heart or truth,
And age with bliss and love forgone,
Forever hidden in our youth.

The time I spent with you now flies away,
Like birds migrate, and I am led astray.

To shrouded days and terrifying nights,
To future spent, and to the lowest heights.

There I now see myself, away from you,
Regretful as the parting age subdued.

And children live, and older people thrive,
While I slowly die alone, decayed, deprived.

Oh tender flower in the thorny field,
To grievances and misery I yield!

I wish to see you now, and evermore,
But fate decided we should be no more.

I spend my days in thought and deep regret,
As if I owed to life a priceless debt.

The jolly song that once did sing our soul
Is now unheard of and is long forgone,
For now that wintertide lasts evermore,
When cometh spring—when shall our song return?
The lonely soul doth live in misery,
For where we dwell there is no memory.
And now that past is past forgotten so,
I speak alone and dust shall I become.

As cannons’ fire reached the wooden mast,
The captain’s courage, cast outside his soul,
Gone to further islands of abandoned past,
And memories of days that virtue stole—
Wretched moments, unworthy to behold—
At last returned to Captain Arthur’s mind,
Who, with his crew, the end of days declined.

The face of enemies, nor fair nor bold,
But bodies, homes of stubborn death and rage—
Abandoned corpses, young and dead and old—
Had left the ground, forsaken day from age,
And drenched in blood as animals encaged,
In agony beheld the face of death,
And met the night of life’s last lonesome breath.

And once the fire ceased, and ashes rose
To higher levels of the ocean mist,
A solemn silence captured passing woes,
And water rested sound, and silence hissed.
But who was there to suffering resist?
For empty triumph blinds the hearts of men,
But honor mourns and enemies laments.

And Captain Arthur, child of humble deeds,
Had spoken thus—in sight of lives forlorn:
“My trusted men, the valiant don’t succeed
If one sheds blood but won’t for pity mourn,
Now gather thee, and sayeth naught till morn!
To-day we face a tempest, or despair,
To-morrow we shall see the mouth of Hell.”

The sea thus spake of wars and woeful days,
As wind caressed the skin of shriveled men
Who had at last a time to rest and pray,
And think of better days, and live again;
For ghastly passion senses overwhelms.
And in the turn of day, when light was gone,
A peaceful bliss the world had undergone.

I hear the lonesome sound of a beginning,
While walking through the shadowed street,
No light in sight, my eyes withheld as blind.
Approaching footsteps, rushed and nervous words,
A sudden gleam surprises my whole being,
A state-of-living like a ransacked dog,
While dying screams possess my inner fear.
A day untold, a sullen cry unheard,
Of justice preached the yellow-tinted man,
Who did embrace the ways of days bygone,
When water rushed through rivers far and wide,
And forests lush and green caressed the land.