Valerie O'Rourke Kitts

Washington Grove, Maryland, USA

Who am I? I'm a poet living in and out of the moment, transcending the ordinary and transforming the mundane; transmuting the extraordinary and bringing it all down to Earth again; that is what I do because this is who I am: a poet.I thank God for the gifts of vision and voice; my family and friends for their support; NLP and ISP for the publishing opportunities; and you for your interest in poetry.

Tracks

Great freight train,
King of the Tracks,
Rolling drums and coronet blast,
Fast away clamoring past in the night,
The crackling of crystalline water,
The crunching steps of the big buck's daughter,
Breath silent and bright,
Branches breaking up the shape
Of her moving body against the street light,
Is music enough for a soul to take flight.

The Flash

Pale reed writhing
As if in ecstacy or pain,
Once kissed by the wind
And caressed by the rain,
What of your mud-soaked foot
Now dancing in the flame?
Nothing, save the soot;
Not a thing remains.

Sacrifice

Give to get, or let go?
What goes around, comes back two-fold;
What simply goes, in the heart of desire,
Goes cold.
What is taken?
What is set free?
What is given?
Could it be that Love is all of these,
And the promise of the unknown
For the compromise of the known?
Sacrifice,
And it is so.

Penchant

I have a penchant for beauty
in things horrible and ugly as death is certain,
an uncontrollable eye that picks the passion out
yet dines on filth and ineptitude;
I have a penchant for pain.
Holding a meager mug borne in sufffering hands
to the heavy clouds
that I may quench this thirst,
that I may soothe this throat,
singed by my sobs and angry cries,
that I may drink pure, cool rain-wine from a silver bowl,
I offer my poems-those little bits of self-the good parts-
the eyes, the ears, the guts,
my voice.