Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Tag Archives: Alcohol

Sacrifice

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry / tagged Addiction, Alcohol, Art & Artists, Drugs / February 2, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The Kuala Khans from minds
broken loose by
and all too soon broken by drugs

The alcohol that so many have found
as the key to their heaven and their hell

And all the wounds of daily battles
with truths wrestled to a fall

Makes me wonder if writers
like mothers and forests
sometimes lay down their bodies
that their children may grow

Another One for Eric

Audio Recordings / tagged Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Death / February 1, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

They say alcohol is a depressant
things go slower and slower

Like when you put the gun to your head

Pulled the trigger
and took ten years to fall down

The Death of a Thousand Cups

Audio Recordings, Relationships / tagged Addiction, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Death / January 31, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Some die by inches, some by ounces

Little by little he sank below the surface
each meeting less and less of him there
- a discussion without a quorum

It's been a few months now
and he hasn't appeared in dreams
or haunting our old haunts

It was so long
since he knew he was alive
he may not yet know that he is dead

North of the Medicine Line

Audio Recordings / tagged Addiction, Alcohol, Colonialism, History, Pioneers, Settlers / January 30, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Given the theory
with some evidence
that the natives of this land
had about the same tolerance
for alcohol as they had for smallpox
and because someone “knew better”
they were not allowed to buy it

If your hubby showed a weakness for drink
and a strong tendency to spend
the grocery money on the demon rum

You’d just go to the proper authorities
have him added to the Indian list
and barred from every bar

The Medicine Line refers to the 49th parallel and Fort Whoop-Up (pictured above) was a notorious trading post in the late 1800s.

Deer Gone

Audio Recordings, Ranch Life / tagged Alcohol, Death, Disconnection, Extinction, First Nations, Gratitude, Guns, Hunting, Ignorance / January 29, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

A tough shot, 600 yards at least, running
left to right in the open sights of the 303
Aim to the top of the third jump ahead, move
the gun in a smooth arc and squeeze slow

It was a kill
I saw it as great skill
a source of blood-fed pride
and the deer… well it just died

The first nations used to see it as a kind of
revolving door, the spirit of the animal would
come back soon enough in another body if you used
the one he had given up to you with gratitude

There are not many deer in these parts anymore
Wonder if they’re trapped waiting for gratitude
the natives lost in Fort Whoop-Up whiskey

and we never knew

Pickled

Audio Recordings / tagged Alcohol, Hunting, No Return / January 27, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Those who talk about
when alcohol becomes an ism
sometimes use the example
of a cucumber immersed in brine

Of how it is a cucumber until it becomes a pickle
and can never go back to being a cucumber again

Could be the same with hunting things

How many geese do you have to shoot
before what was a Vee of beauty passing overhead
turns to calculating the range of a 12 gauge to bring them down

The Lady Who Eats Snow

Audio Recordings / tagged Alcohol, Dreams / December 14, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

There is a lovely sad lady in Texas
who eats snow in her dreams
writes about young wolves
and the order of the hunt

During the long dark winter
the lady who eats snow
grows larger and nearer to herself

The ice of the river is in her glass
she is two margaritas short of a howl

Soon she will dream
of alpha wolves
and water

Set Em Up Joe

Audio Recordings / tagged Alcohol, Friends, Influence, Sugar, Vices / November 20, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Some sweets
for my sweet diabetic pals

Booze for the livers
to the last of their livers

The usual for me
I’ll have what they’re having

Cousin Wayne

Audio Recordings, Family, Relationships / tagged Alcohol, Regret / October 7, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

When Wayne was thirteen
he had the finest blondest hair
the finest features and the finest mind
of all the cousins round

A city boy and cooler about everything than us
until we took him hunting

When his first shot hit the rabbit
he ran and cried and held it till it died

At eighteen he quit school with A grades
a month before graduation to get a jump on a job
met a girl and bragged of achievement on first date

Over achievement it turned out to be
quick marriage, quick, two children, three

Army for security, liquor for the pain
it was twenty years before I saw him again

He was in a downstairs bar
sitting there as coarse and thick as adobe brick

I wanted to roll it all back
reach in for the lost fineness and yank it all inside out

And hold him like the rabbit when he cried
still innocent when it died

1 Reply

Supper with the Phd

Audio Recordings, Relationships / tagged Alcohol, Alcoholism, Coping, Death, Genius, Suicide / September 25, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I sit across from my friend
and watch as he drowns
his well developed brain

Every day after work
he puts another million
brain cell kittens in a sack
and takes them to the lake

It is not for me to judge

This small death each day
may well have kept him from
the larger choice his father made

And a diminished capacity may help
when listening to the daily news
or hanging out with poets

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Ken Christopher on Buddy TrainingFebruary 19, 2025
Yep, tough love
Kimberly Heinrich on Dog YearsFebruary 18, 2025
You could not possibly have known that today was the day that I had to have my beloved dog euthanized.…
Barbara Joy Bruce on FebruaryFebruary 13, 2025
love it! Thanks, Neil!
Ken Christopher on Ancestry . BarnFebruary 7, 2025
You bet; nice one Neil
Barb on Her Mother Sings to VioletsFebruary 2, 2025
💜💓💜

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