Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Tag Archives: Communication

Breathing in Winter

Audio Recordings, Relationships / tagged Communication, Regret / December 18, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

1 Reply

That Conversation

Audio Recordings, Personal Growth, Relationships, Travel / tagged Communication, Connection / December 3, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Met in a resort hotel
across the peninsula from Athens
a retired ship owner who had just returned
from speaking at a conference in Delphi
on magic in the modern world

He talked about Delphi having been a library
where people gathered knowledge
before asking the oracle for the spirit side

He said Dorsey and I had to go to Delos and why

He said sometimes you have this conversation
and held his hands about hands-width apart
and sometimes you have this conversation
with hands as far apart as a fisherman’s lie

We had that conversation

This Thanksgiving I sat with John Lee
fellow poet fellow traveler on so many trails

We had that conversation - Hope you have many too

Whales’ Tales

Audio Recordings, Environment, Nature, Poems about Poetry / tagged Communication, Hawaii, Humpbacks, Maui, Whales / August 16, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The poems of whales
still rhyme
and are often
mistaken for song

Each year at about this time
a cacophony of competition
disturbs the elders
and the waters

Once the poem for the year is chosen
and all have learned it by heart
they return to their largeness

How The Ear and The Eye

Audio Recordings, Nature, Relationships / tagged Communication / May 2, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

How the ear and the eye
both sender and receiver be

How like the sun
you warm all that you softly see

And do not think
dear hammer anvil ear
that little drum plays but for thee

New Tribes

Audio Recordings, Personal Growth, Relationships / tagged Communication, Healing, Hope, Israel, Jewish, Muslim, Palestine, Voice Dialogue / December 17, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

From the old tribe of Isaac
and the old tribe of Ishmael

Israeli and Palestinian
couples and their children
come together by the sea and share

We are teaching the skills of listening
the skills of sharing and skills of hearing

The rules are simple
tell your truth as your truth only

Assume as you listen
that the person makes sense
If they do not seem to make sense
assume you need more information

By the end of the weekend
the eight year olds are sleeping over
teenagers walk on the beach till dawn

A new tribe being formed

Questions For the Next Séance

Audio Recordings, Family, Remembering / tagged Childhood, Communication, Death / November 4, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Dearest Mother;

Sorry to disturb you
in your well deserved bliss,
but here’s a short list
of things that I forgot to ask

And if it isn’t too much trouble
I’d like the answers as detailed as possible

It will be understandable
if you can’t conjure up a voice,
but one rap for yes, and two for no,
on a floating table won’t quite do

However, if you can look up Samuel Morse,
(who may well be bored and available),
he can give you a quick-study course
and I will dust off my old Boy Scout manual
I believe “talk to me” In Morse still becomes:

– •– •–•• –•– – – – – – – •

So, now that we’ve got the hang of it;

– What was the best day of your life
– What was your worst

– Your greatest triumph
– Your greatest disappointment

– What you are happiest that you did
– Saddest that you didn’t

Why exactly did my uncle shoot my dog
Whatever happened to my baseball card collection, with the rookie Mickey Mantle

and what is heaven like

A Little to the Right

Audio Recordings, Relationships / tagged Communication / June 29, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

How does the heron
learn about refraction
and that the fish is not
where the fish appears to be

It is a matter of survival I suppose

Like me learning the difference
and the angle of intent
between what you said and
what you meant

1 Reply

Word Divisions

Audio Recordings, Pilots, Poems about Poetry, Ranch Life, Relationships / tagged Communication, Understanding / June 25, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

You can know your native language
and still feel all alone
as pilots talk to pilots
in a code that’s all their own

Yet not even one to one
can they share that love of air
or touch the other’s feelings
of the fear and beauty there

Sailors talk to sailors
of wind and sail and rope
of nights upon the ocean
of courage and of hope

Yet the words just can’t convey
their love of sea and air
nor touch the other’s feelings
of the fear and beauty there

And though cowboys talk to cowboys
in a special kind of drawl
there’s still a space between them
the words can’t tell at all

Not those nights of cold and stars
with coyotes on the air
nor the call of open spaces
with the fear and beauty there

Watch as lovers talk to lovers
in ways only two can share
as they build between them
a framework light and fair

While a web that’s spun of maybes
hangs so fragile in the air
that one false word can shatter
into pain, the beauty there

And yet

There are still some crazy poets
out riding hatless in the sun
still trying to do the very thing
we all know can’t be done

Still Quixoting for a language
that can speak to everyone

1 Reply

Zero

Audio Recordings / tagged Communication, Math / February 26, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The man who first saw nothing drew a line around it - Alan Dugan

Ancient India gets credit for the invention of the number zero

It could have been a caveman reporting the results of a bad hunt

Going Back to the Store Again

Audio Recordings, Relationships, Travel / tagged Communication, Connection, Covid19 / June 22, 2021 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Water in a well cannot flow
Yi Saek, Korea 1328-1396
What I got
was more than what I bought

Human to human
something flows both ways

Like the mouths
of rivers along the Bay of Fundy

https://bayoffundytourism.com/worlds-highest-tides/tidal-bore/

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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
Ken Christopher on Father’s PoemMarch 29, 2025
Lovely‼️
Ken on MossbankMarch 23, 2025
Beautiful, that could go on a t-shirt

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