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A man wandered around on a boat,
And fell through a hole in the hull;
He was gobbled up by a shark,
And then by a flock of seagulls.

Three days later the man's ghost came back,
To haunt the boat with the hole;
But the boat was not there and never even was,
It was only a desert of trolls.

The ocean lay far to the right and the left,
The dragon's lair matched the shape's theme;
The tropical site, a mystery is,
Things vanish without naught a great scream.

What happened to the mythical boat,
Why was it never there?
What happened here with the desert and trolls,
What was this strange affair?

HINT:

The answer lay somewhere on Earth,
not in cyberspace void;
The man's not alone in his plight,
A place that many avoid.

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    $\begingroup$ I believe there is not enough here. This could be referring to anything from a surreal fantasy world (taken more or less straight) to a scam on 4chan ("desert of trolls", with the rest taken metaphorically where necessary). This at least needs a clue or two to point out which of the bits are supposed to be the important bits. $\endgroup$
    – Ben Barden
    Commented Feb 6, 2019 at 16:07
  • $\begingroup$ Creative answers encouraged $\endgroup$
    – Riddler
    Commented Feb 9, 2019 at 0:52
  • $\begingroup$ Update Perhaps it was too ambiguous. As a result, a full new stanza has been added giving many clues. Enjoy! $\endgroup$
    – Riddler
    Commented Feb 10, 2019 at 22:08
  • $\begingroup$ There is a principle in roleplaying games, that the mystery that you design always seems to follow from the clues far more obviously in your own head than it will ever seem from the outside. I believe you are falling afoul of this. It's very similar, in some ways, to the difference between P and NP in computer science. In order to be solvable, it has to make some sort of sense even if you don't know the answer to begin with. $\endgroup$
    – Ben Barden
    Commented Feb 11, 2019 at 20:14
  • $\begingroup$ More specifically, I can see how that additional stanza might seem to someone who knew the answer already to be a really obvious belaboring of the point. To someone who does not, though, it's painfully unconnected, and barely refers back to the rest of the poem at all. It's the first (and last) we hear of a dragon's lair,a nd we don't know what the shape refers to. $\endgroup$
    – Ben Barden
    Commented Feb 11, 2019 at 20:18

1 Answer 1

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Are you the

Bermuda Triangle

A man wandered around on a boat,
And fell through a hole in the hull;
He was gobbled up by a shark,
And then by a flock of seagulls.

Three days later the man's ghost came back,
To haunt the boat with the hole;
But the boat was not there and never even was,
It was only a desert of trolls.

This place is dangerous because supposedly boats go missing.

The ocean lay far to the right and the left,
The dragon's lair matched the shape's theme;
The tropical site, a mystery is,
Things vanish without naught a great scream.

The shape is a triangle. There is another place in the ocean in the Pacific ocean called dragon's triangle.

What happened to the mythical boat,
Why was it never there?
What happened here with the desert and trolls,
What was this strange affair?

The Bermuda triangle

The answer lay somewhere on Earth,
not in cyberspace void;
The man's not alone in his plight,
A place that many avoid.

In the Bermuda

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    $\begingroup$ See I told you the hint would be too much. Great job but I think I gave it away too much. Next time I will resist giving a new hint, but great job! $\endgroup$
    – Riddler
    Commented Feb 11, 2019 at 22:51
  • $\begingroup$ By the way a mystery currently still remains: the dragon's lair, what is the dragon's lair and how did it match the shape's theme? Answer that and your answer will be complete :) HINT: It's not a metaphor $\endgroup$
    – Riddler
    Commented Feb 11, 2019 at 22:52
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    $\begingroup$ I think I found it @Riddler :) $\endgroup$
    – Goose
    Commented Feb 11, 2019 at 22:56
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    $\begingroup$ Excellent!! Great job :) $\endgroup$
    – Riddler
    Commented Feb 11, 2019 at 22:56
  • $\begingroup$ @Riddler so... "someone solved it" equals "the hint was too much"? $\endgroup$
    – Ben Barden
    Commented Feb 12, 2019 at 13:58

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