Warning to you hunter,
when your hand will not be still–
when your mercy fails your prey,
is it you or he who’s killed?

If a vampire hunter kills without mercy, then how is he any better than those vampires whom he is killing? Mercy is a characteristic of humanity, so to remain human we must excercise it and keep ourselves above those which we condemn, else we are no better than they.

:::

Vampire Shackled
For every bit of power,
another chain is dealt.
Your triumph finds your failure,
when the hunter hunts himself.

How does a vampire get his power? By biting and subduing people, of course. Now, what happens if there are no more people to bite or subdue? Uh-oh, no more power. Is a vampire even a vampire when there’s no one to feed from? A vampire, by definition, is a being who feeds from others. Think of this poem in terms of the Taoist meditation, “If a tree falls in the wood and no one hears it, does it make a sound?” If a vampire has no victim, is he still a vampire? So you see, everytime a vampire takes a victim’s life, he’s put himself one step closer to extinction– worse, non-being. So, you see, everytime the vampire grows more powerful by taking a victim, he actually gets less powerful in the long run. And, in turn, he’s hunting himself because he, better than any vampire killer, can push himself into oblivion.