.

Life on the Farm

Daddy’s gone. Is he sleeping?
For only the shell remains.
I hear the cries of cicadas.
I listen to their pain.

Momma, why are you weeping?
Did Daddy push you away?
Her tears rob the cicadas,
And we live in silence today.

Pain is the crop we are reaping.
Someone help us, I pray.
No one hears but cicadas,
And, yes, it’s an ordinary day.

.

.

Two

It’s good to have something to hate
Said the blind man to the fly.
Stay still! I’ll seal your fate—
And squash those million eyes.

The fly was in no mood
For losing on that day.
He skedaddled out of the room.
But hate finds a way.

Left to his own devices
The blind man hated on.
Finally he killed the fly
And dumped him on the lawn.

It was so easy, the blind man laughed,
__You were a stupid prey.
But the fly looked down from his perch in the clouds
__To live another day.

.

.

A Toss Up

Two dice lay on the kitchen floor,
Beckoned for a mental score
Of all the lives that I might lead,
A contemplative reverie.

Lost in staring thought I see
All the people I might be,
Reflecting through a weary mind,
Forever after left behind.

Two dice lay on the kitchen floor;
I turned and walked on out the door.
However can you form a life
Haunted by the ghosts of might.

.

.

Aleta Kiefer is a mother and grandmother who lives in Washington, Missouri.

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10 Responses

  1. sally cook

    Dear Aleta –
    .
    I admire the wisdom of your thoughts but am distressed by your meter..

    I had a mama. She would have told me to pay more attention to my meter.
    I hope you will do the same. I look forward to seeing more of your poems.

    I would not have written this if I did not think you are an unusual voice.

    Reply
  2. C.B. Anderson

    Sally is right, Aleta. Practice meter in its most rigid format until it becomes second-nature, and then learn which metrical substitutions are permissible (i.e., which enhance rather than obfuscate the meter of choice). Doing so is not restrictive; rather, it is emancipating.

    Reply
  4. Paul Freeman

    I particularly enjoyed ‘Life on the Farm’, Aleta, with the freedom of its loose meter, though I perhaps would have ended with ‘It’s an ordinary day.’, leaving out ‘And, yes…’

    Thanks for the reads, Aleta.

    Reply
  5. Pippa Kay

    I enjoyed your poems – the subject matter is interesting. Particularly liked the Life on the Farm and the line Pain is the crop we are reaping.

    Reply

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