Thanks to the seemingly inexplicable phenomenon of crustacean mob mentality, for generations crab fishermen have left their catch baskets uncovered, for steadfast captivity is gruesomely guaranteed by fellow inmates’ kapoesque brutality.

Bright with life
percipient pale blue eyes
set
deeply
past virile
chocolate-tanned chiseled brows
caressed harshly
by the waning years’
abrasion of
wind
& setting suns,
witnesses
daily
to brutal,
kapoesque control
of unyielding courage,
perseverance
in the face
of pessimism and envy

The singular
set of bounding blue-tipped
king crab claws
flexing brawn
pull doggedly
upward
from the smothering
abyss
of the crabman’s creel

Above,
beyond
the oppressive
stagnant depths
of pooling,
squirming
black and olive-green
pressure
of dead weight
steadily, by inches
pushing on,
ascending
toward the bluish hue
of daylight’s promise

Teetering
upon the hand-woven wicker precipice
of the unknown
universe:
freedom …
to breathe, uninhibitedly
to live, noisily
to create, frenetically
to thrive, boundlessly
to love, with abandon
within sweet
& savory
seductive sight

Then,
as if by cruel design,
in one of life’s
more mercilessly
culled
capricious moments,
insisting imperiously
upon untimely instruction
of its omnipotent
and fleeting ways,
the crisp, resounding
crack!
of one fellow-contorted-captive’s-stabbing-clamp-like-pinch
jerks
& tugs
forcibly
at the might
& strength
of indomitable determination

Pressing mercilessly
against progress
fearlessness
spills
eyes tumble
downward
into the writhing
sea of pitch
green
envy,
imploding hope

Splash!
into the mob’s
hateful trap:
minds impregnable
to liberating philosophies
severed
from the world
of bluelimitless possibility

Like parachutes
in full plume
the boundless
optimistic mind
swells
with oxygen
and soaring
stoutheartedness
deprived of which
it implodes,
morphing
into a choking cloud
of sulphuric
yellow
suffocation