August 2023 – Page 3 – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Monthly Archives: August 2023

Alice’s Father

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry, Remembering / tagged Aging, Alzheimers/Dementia / August 11, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Farther and farther he sank
below the surface of dementia

And yet like a salmon
in his homeland of Scotland
we would rise to the words
of a favourite poem

Grab the hook and leap
the length of the line

Three Strikes

Audio Recordings, Remembering / tagged Aging, Alzheimers/Dementia, Baseball, Friendship, Sports / August 10, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

My sportswriter friend has Alzheimers now
and I wonder what happens
behind that bright brow

When we were kids, he was the guy
who knew each homer and pop fly
and every player's RBI

Grew up to travel with the pros
what he didn't know, why nobody knows

And now soggy-brained he tromps
through sub-sequitorial swamps
the mind once quick as a cat's
drowning among the stats

Rene Davis – Sportswriter for the Winnipeg Free Press

Playing Old 78s at the Nursing Home

Audio Recordings, Family, Nostalgia, Relationships, Remembering / tagged Aging, Alzheimers, Dementia, Forgetting, Memory / August 9, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Aunt Myrtle
skips a groove from time to time

The needle, still diamond sharp
plays 1952 for a round or two

Then the niceness of the people here
Grandpa's bad temper, and the size of the long kitchen at the farm

The sweetness of her husband
sometimes here and sometimes gone
and where is he now?

Reminded that he died some years ago with quick humour still intact, replies
That would explain why he never comes to visit

1 Reply

The Man in the Desert

Audio Recordings, Remembering / tagged Aging, Grief, Memory / August 8, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The man in the desert remembers
and a tear begins to form

A tear so long unleashed
ninety percent of the water is gone

Dragging its chain of crusted drops
it carves a white canyon
down his long and leathered face

A cracked tongue between cracked lips
reaches to taste it - Oh so sweet

Photo by Robert Murray on Unsplash

1 Reply

On the Pali with Jane

Audio Recordings, Remembering, Travel / August 7, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

We had a bottle of Champagne
that we won on the way from LA
for guessing the closest arrival time

We had Big Macs to make it a picnic

The Pali is a very high point on Oahu
the cliff is steep and the winds strong

They tell a story of a suicide jump
where the leaper was caught by the wind
and blown back to the vine-covered cliff
where he thought it over and climbed back up

We were happy for the jumper and happy for us

Memory Lane Jogging

Audio Recordings, Family, Nostalgia, Remembering / August 6, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

There are things I remember I forgot
like the music of my father’s swearing
when a heavy hammer had hit his thumb

And like the words that mother said
when she called us all in to go to bed

There are others another layer down
that digging alone I would never f ind
that someone else has to bring to mind

So I listen to stories by family and friend
till strings pop up to pull with a knot at the end

1 Reply

Little School on the Prairie

Audio Recordings / tagged Bilingualism, Education, Mistakes, School, Small Town / August 5, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Rural Saskatchewan's
attempts at bilingualism
were not always a success

School monument with misspelled ÉCOLE (the French word for school)

1 Reply

Where News is News

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Farm, News, Ranch Life / tagged NASA, Small Town, Space Travel / August 4, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

On April 16th 1972
Apollo 16 blasted off
for a landing on the moon

While on a farm
just outside Coderre Saskatchewan
a two headed calf was being born

For 50 miles
in all directions
one was bigger news than the other

Small Town Grief

Audio Recordings, News / tagged Childhood, Grief, Pespective / August 3, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

When a boy in our school died
from a word we could say but not spell
It was the only death to count

There was no TV to diminish by compare
and spread our grief so thin
it would not cover him

1 Reply

Small Town Grade Seven

Uncategorized / August 2, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

In a town of six or seven hundred
you get a cross section of the country

One classmate's father's suicide
with shotgun spattered walls

One boy, my age, drowned
in an upturned truck in a muddy ditch

One with leukaemia, white as the snow

One redhead, Leslie French, as beautiful and mysterious as the language

One blonde, Shirlely Long, to long for

She's only interested in grade 9 boys

One bruised heart

Not yet hard enough to be broken

1 Reply

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Tom on Basketball in CanadaApril 18, 2025
Neil, as you may know we live about 15 miles from his former farm. The locals have installed a bronze…
Ken Christopher on Hockey Night in CanadaApril 17, 2025
Good one, it’s still goin on
Ken Christopher on ShitstormApril 4, 2025
My former comment had an error, should have read: Great poem Neil, has some slippery elements that mix it up…
Kenneth on Walden PondApril 3, 2025
Siblants interlapping with interference waves construct this delightful hologram of spring: well done my friend
Ken Christopher on Minutia in MarchApril 1, 2025
21 beats, 4 past hyku, (sp); perhaps a new form. Beautiful poem

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