Crabs

(Written on the Queensland Beach) Poisonous, bloated, crab-like shapes Crawl in gangs around these capes— Stopping here and feeding there; Listening, crawling everywhere; Searching every rotten weed With a frothing wild-eyed greed; Fighting o’er a lump of scurf, Or a red boil of the earth; Thrusting up their writhing claws To their grinning, fiend-like maws. And these horrid creatures wet With a thick unwholesome sweat Have most hideous banquets here On the poor drowned marineer. Down they hurry eagerly, Chittering all the way with glee; They have smelt the tainted air From that body festering there. How they twitch their claws and pry Into each distorted eye; How they spit on him with spite As their nippers pinch and bite; How they strip him clean and bare, Leaving not a morsel there, Till they’re gorged and all squat near Fleshless remnants with a leer. When the billows near them roll, Each will scoop himself a hole In the mudbank and therein Sleep like an embodied sin. In the world so crass and blind Human crabs feed on their kind— All that fall into their power; Skulking near their dismal holes, They sniff out poor wretched souls Thrown by life’s unpitying sea On the beach of misery.