August 2019 – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Monthly Archives: August 2019

Momma in Mykonos

Audio Recordings, Travel / August 31, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

marolina says, enjoy the room
my eighty two year old mother
lives on the first floor under your stairs
call on her if you need anything

momma doesn’t understand our English
but most important that we understand
she could understand, but chooses not to

She also knows that her daughter
must rent the rooms above her head
but she will not look up

In Greece

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry, Travel / tagged mythology / August 30, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

In Greece I remember and meet myself everywhere
I am Socrates questioning
I am the athlete striving, the architect planning
the builder building, the potter shaping
the sculptor seeking, the warrior dying
and the poet pointing

In Greece
I am all men and all gods as well
and I remember how many times, in this life alone
I have pushed the rock endlessly uphill
carried the world on my shoulders
had my liver eaten by the savage bird

How many times
I have fallen in love with my own reflection
reached out for the sweet grapes and sweet water
to find them moving always beyond my grasp
been forced to echo only what others have said
tied myself to the mast to resist the siren’s call

Fought in a thousand wars full out on the open field or sea
or hidden in the belly of a wooden horse

Islands

Relationships / August 29, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

No man is an island
though every woman be

The coves are warm
the sirens sweet
but always the sea
the sea

Chinese Restaurant

Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering, Travel / August 28, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Sorry John Donne
but some men may be islands

or castaways
in small prairie towns
fifty miles by bad road
from any other of their race

Tall walled booths along one side
twisted-wire chairs and tables too
my father and his friends had coffee
I think mine was cream soda

We may have eaten there
but I don’t remember
certainly at five or six
I would not have imagined
that we were as strange to him
as he was to us

All I ever knew
of the inner man
was the pungent foreignness
of the old two-holer out back
Fast forward six years or so
to small town of Mossbank
on the south side of the lake

A chubby twelve year old
sits in a low walled booth
with his best buddies
and another Chinese man
in another Chinese café
serves up Vanilla Cokes
(when vanilla still had alcohol)
and marks our tabs with
Chinese signs

I asked him what my three mean

Big – Small – Happy

1 Reply

Black Beauty

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Cats / August 27, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

When we moved to Grandfather’s
old farm
no one had been living there for a while
and all the cats had gone wild

We found a litter of kittens
hidden deep in a corner of the loft
and among them
the most beautiful black and white kitten

Spitting and crouching under the eaves
she scratched us all to the bone
If I’d been a tree there would
have been six rings

Much persistence and we got her out
much time and love and we tamed her
if one ever really tames a cat
Best cat ever
adopted by our cousins when we moved
and one of the things we most looked forward
to on our visits was Black Beauty and her newest of who knew how many litters

The tomcats in that town were also
excellent judges of beauty

For Victor

Uncategorized / August 26, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The only trick an old dog can learn is how to be an old dog
The minimum turns one has to take before lying down for that nap
That a bark is as good as a chase for keeping squirrels off the deck
And that after all these years of standing up for your standing friends you've likely earned their kneeling by you now.

3 Replies

Growing Into It

Audio Recordings, Nostalgia, Personal Growth / August 25, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Remember all those hand-me-ups
all at least two sizes too big
mother bought for you

You look like a clown but don’t dare frown
it’s frugal and wise so don’t roll your eyes

“Be careful, be careful please”
but you’re all elbows and knees

Before they half fit they all look like shit
so it’s back to the store to try it once more
and your behind is behind two sizes again

Childhood patterns are hard to break

Growing out of school, marriage, and every
job I’ve ever had before I really got it
before I was even big enough to fit

Eggshells Need Love Too

Audio Recordings / tagged Sensitivity, Vulnerability / August 24, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

lately I've been feeling so empty and more fragile than ever before
everything that i believed in is gone
desperate i turn my jagged edges to the world
step on me with sensitive feet you will be sorry
with lumbering boots, i will be crushed

Wouldn’t It Be Nice

Audio Recordings, Flight, Pilots / August 23, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

wouldnt it be nice
Wouldn’t it be nice
if you went out with your instructor one morning
and the blue foothills sky was full of white puff ball clouds

And you smiled at each other
and began to play in and out of their magic
of shadows and light

And it felt as much lighter than air
as air is lighter than earth

And the hour took moments and forever
and the silence and awe followed you back
and he wouldn’t even take your money for the ride

Now I know it’s not legal to fly in clouds like that
so I’m not exactly saying that it happened
but wouldn’t it be nice

Image by k-images from Pixabay

Old Barn Leaning

Cowboy Poetry, Farm, Ranch Life, Uncategorized / August 22, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Still standing by the grace
of planks to the east
wind to the west

and a world in every
dust mote memory

Image by Joan Greenman from Pixabay

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Ken Christopher on War WoundsNovember 12, 2024
So true, the barbed wire 👍🏼
Niece Karen on Quaking in the AtticOctober 23, 2024
Perfect metaphor - you captured me perfectly!
Ken Christopher on God is Getting OnOctober 22, 2024
Anger contained in love
Murray on Feels of the Farm – FlaxOctober 15, 2024
Now that's vintage knowledge Neil!!!! Hope you're feeling much better. Your poem would suggest you are!!
Ken Christopher on Fowl SupperSeptember 22, 2024
Wonderful poem Neil

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