July 2023 – Page 3 – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Monthly Archives: July 2023

The Barnstormer and the Boy

Audio Recordings, Flight, Pilots, Ranch Life, Travel / tagged escape, Growing up / July 11, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

In the little plane, just the pilot and me
up up up into the prairie air

Climbing and gliding and floating free
high above the county fair

The town looked small from way up there but hell... it looked small from anywhere

It was the changing people into ants
that I loved best and wanted again

Being on the wrong side of relative bigness had been causing me a lot of pain

The Day I Saw the UFO

Audio Recordings, Farm, Flight, Ranch Life / July 10, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I'm sitting
with my back against the tractor tire
eating lunch in the long field by the lake

It flies over
directly south to north
plenty high and far from humanly fast

It is made of a metal that shines out of itself

I rise with a smile
brush the crumbs from my jeans
set my eyes on the furrow
and let out the clutch

Roundup

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Cows, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Branding, Work / July 9, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

It's about the hardest dustiest best work a man can get

The pride of the heeling rope, thrown snake quick fro a good horse and the slow steady pull, dragging the white face out where the boys with the hot irons can record the feat

Three hundred cows sing of calves lost and found, and above and through it all the full strong laugh of one of the boys where a slip was made or a kick well placed

At the end of the day, you wrap a rope sore hand around a spring cold beer, and lean back against the old pole fence deep in the pain, and the sweat, and the moment

Completely released from the wheel of desire
There's no place you'd rather be
There's no one you'd rather be with
and you're too damned tired to move anyway

Kenny and Me (or Ranching at Eighteen)

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Ranch Life, Relationships, Remembering / July 8, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Together we were young
and strong and very bold
and together we could drink
more beer than we could hold

We could drive home late and fast
singing every Johnny Horton song
Then fall asleep for minutes
and still answer the morning gong

We would work it out in the hot hot sun
(so easy then did the poisons yield)
As we sweated bales with pitch forks
and passed gas
in a thousand acre field

When your best friend is your cousin
The missing is mightily multiplied
RIP Kenny Wirges

Saskatchewan from the Skies

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nature, Pilots, Ranch Life, Travel / tagged Perspective, River / July 7, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Man lays down grids
while nature smiles in wander

This is hard to see from a tractor
but your neighbour Wally has a plane

It won't look the same below again

Absent Mind

Audio Recordings / tagged Distraction / July 6, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Happy Birthday USA

Audio Recordings / tagged 4th of July, Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Democracy, Hope, Independence Day / July 4, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Declaration of pure poetry
Long may that song be sung

Fire Relief Concert in Austin

Audio Recordings / tagged Art & Artists, Charity, George Strait, Help, Lyle Lovett, Music, Musicians, Support, Texas, Wildfire, Willie Nelson / July 3, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

It’s damn dry
in Texas this year Y’all

It was summer in spring
and it’s still summer in fall

Big old lakes are all piss-puddle small
and the cows are eatin’ Bar-B-Q grass
the ones that are eatin’ at all

A million trees and a thousand homes
burned up in Bastrop just like dry sticks

But the stars are gathering over in Austin
Willie and George and the Dixie Chicks

Neighbors who know and care how they feel
Lovett and friends and Asleep at the Wheel

So let’s all chip in and do what we do
I’ll write a poem, what about you?

Willie Nelson singing Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die at Fire Relief: The Concert for Central Texas October 17, 2011 – Click here to listen to him perform it live in 2013

1 Reply

Jerry Jeff at the Ranchman’s at the Calgary Stampede

Audio Recordings, Nostalgia, Remembering / tagged Jerry Jeff Walker, Music, Reminiscing / July 2, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

There’s a row of rodeo saddles
on a rail between dance floor and bar
where Jerry Jeff is singing Bojangles

There’s a bar f ight going on
with me somewhere in the middle
trying to break it up and paying the price
-------------------
They’ve torn up the Ranchman’s dance floor
Jerry Jeff’s not having birthday parties no more

I remember the music and I remember the f ight
and like Jeff - I feel like Hank Williams tonight

Jerry Jeff Walker celebrated his birthday party featuring song writers, musicians and friends at The Paramount Theater in Austin for over 30 years.

Ridin’ High

Audio Recordings / tagged Jerry Jeff Walker, Music, Taxes / July 1, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Gotta love
Jerry Jeff playing at the Ranchman's
Saturday night of the Calgary Stampede
Bar fight bumpin up against the stage
never missin a lick of Night Riders Lament

Gotta love
Jerry Jeff and Susan in April
not enough money for Uncle Sam
but just enough for an old convertible
and a drive through Austin bluebonnets

I sure do

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