Wow. I never realized until I read this, how BP not only fouled our beaches but it has fouled my concept of a walk on the beach. I need to quit watching the news if it's going to mess up my ability to comprehend poetry correctly. This is a well written poem, but all I can picture from the last stanza is two lovers trying to walk amongst the sludge. Did today's earthquake up there affect you any? Sure hoping you're ok.

...tryin' again to fight the Scourge--LIFE. well written from the gut...yes chris, there is life after love, or losing one's heart yet again...your pome rocks me[gently]as tho' Christ was lying down in the boat w/ me, still i turn to check and see if He's still there. a good full o' life pome.

this feels like a coming home of sorts. i like it and feel welcome. and it sounds like the door was waiting open for you.

I hope I'm still kicking ass after writing poetry for as long as you have, and that's not to say you're old by any means. You're miles away from whatever age you are or might feel, and this poem proves that. It reads like someone who has just started to really get on a roll.

The more times I read this, the more I like it.

The Muse will entice! And the bond never be broken! Very thoughtful reflection on the poetic experience of the writer.

Very well done- gritty write. The more I read it, the more I liked it. I have spent many hours wondering how I got to where I am.

As always well done Chriss...CharMin

Oh man, how I can relate! The last four lines are my favorites. "the bond of blood and poetry" - brilliant and so true. More than an old friend whom I never forget and too seldom visit - there is a bond of blood. Thanks for shucking the shoes and making your way here.

Great write, Chris. Seem that poets have two main problems. One is writer's block, when the words won't come at all, and the other is logorrhea, when the words come so fast that they can hardly get to the wastebasket in time. Nice. Thanks.

I often fear she will leave as well. This word draped muse that never seems to stop waiting for me to return after the mundane activities that all too often we call life. Great write!

I'm there, too. The long over-due return voyage at last in full swing

We shift, and grow, and decline, and despair, we become these unrecognizable faces under predictable masks, complacency inserting itself into the bloodstream of passion, day-to-day necessity drowning out the whispers of longing and killing the appetite we thought we had...but we shift again, and we find ourselves once more, albeit perhaps more cautiously, taking the tourniquet off of passion, letting silence take over so that we might hear those whispers, and letting our desire to indulge our appetites fill us...that we may feast.