Alone with myself on this cold frozen deck, I dream of my life. I dream of the check.

—Danny Keyser

Crab fishing is one of the most dangerous and death-defying professions short of combat. Essentially, life on the big water exposes one to the most demanding rigors in the professional world.

In being one of a few, fierce pride binds this band of brothers and sisters together. One might say that this is a private club. To be one of the few, a fisher must expose himself to years of danger and toil, and of course, they must survive.

Danny Keyser can list those who fell to the ocean on all his 10 fingers. He has seen it happen before his eyes. He is one of a few. As a young buck, he went to Alaska and fished in the Bering Sea. The labor was so intense, so back-breaking, excruciating and dangerous that he thought he might not survive that first season.

He certainly thought that the first season would be his last. That is — or was — until he got a paycheck for $52,000. All that was back in 1992, and for roughly 20 more years, he never deviated from his living on the Bering Sea.

Keyser was an Astoria kid, born and raised. His relatives earned their living on the unpredictable waters of the Columbia River and Pacific Ocean or at the Bumble Bee Tuna warehouse. The family fished for salmon and almost every other seafood that would translate into hard cash. That effort put food on the table and a roof over their heads.

His great-grandfather came from Yugoslavia in 1913. Coming from eastern and northern Europe, this was a rare opportunity. He saw nothing but the benefits of hard work. Like most immigrants, the fishing profession was passed from father to son.

Keyser is a poet. He is a storyteller. In his later years in Alaska, he held an audience in sway, telling dramatic stories aboard a converted Alaskan Bering Sea boat called the Aleutian Ballad and a tour by the name of Bering Sea Crab Fisherman’s Tour. He was a distinguished guide. Here’s Danny:

The ocean is cold, and the wind will not rest.

This season will demand nothing but your best.

You hear it in the riggin.

You feel it in your bones.

Explain standing on a rolling deck for two days without rest while winching 700-pound pots off the bottom of the Bering Sea as fast as the ship slips from buoy to buoy. Describe intense fear when 25-foot waves crash over the transom, scattering men and gear across the deck, and often into the freezing sea. Explain exhaustion. Explain arthritis and a damaged hip, then two, and knees and the fact that you won’t run to port until the hold is filled with king crab.

It is Keyser’s delight to share these stories. He will be onstage as a Friday evening host for the FisherPoets Gathering at Xanadu Astoria, reading at 8 p.m., and return Saturday at 6 p.m. at KALA.