March 2023 – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Monthly Archives: March 2023

The Twinkle

Audio Recordings, Family, Relationships / tagged Joy, Light / March 31, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

There is a thing about light
no matter where it starts
it never stops

Even if it takes a million years
to get from the twinkling stars
to here

There was a twinkle in the eyes of this man
A twinkle of innocent mischief and inner joy
greeting every man and woman
every girl and boy

When you saw it you knew that he liked you
and never doubted that you’d like him too

And he was right

Because there is a thing about light

A million years from now
and no one knows how far
they will see it on some star

A poem composed for the author’s father’s funeral in 1997

Light Shining on Copper

Audio Recordings, Remembering / tagged Copper Love, Fate, Friendship, Grief, Loss / March 30, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I can mostly buy
the whole spiritual thing
that she is neither dead nor gone

or at a perfect time
and to a perfect place

But there is
this hole in a hug
where she used to fit

Copper Left Her Laugh

Audio Recordings, Relationships, Remembering / tagged Death, Joy, Memory / March 29, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

It is on
her answering machine
It is in
the hearts
of a thousand friends
as she laughs at death
or with it

Remember the Alamo

Audio Recordings, Remembering / tagged Copper Love, Death, Grief / March 28, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The Test

Audio Recordings / tagged Art & Artists, Concentration, Copper Love, Hawaii / March 27, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

If you want to see an artist, here's a picture

Copper, sitting, back to a cliff
on the northernmost tip of Maui

Two hikers stop and say
What are you doing? Just sketching
Been here long? Not sure
Don't the ants bother you? What ants?
She looks to where they point
at the long column single-filing
up, acros, and over one bare let
between, then up and over the other
and down toward the red-sand cove

Red Sands Beach, Maui Hawaii

by Copper Love – Plein-air

Kaleidoscope

Audio Recordings / tagged Beauty, Perspective, Vision / March 26, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Having enough
vision in my left eye
to see colour and light
I'll install a kaleidoscope
and cover it with a pink patch

Then when shaking my head
about the world my right
and should be right is seeing
I can but lift the patch and wow

The Courage of Miners

Audio Recordings / tagged Danger, Death, Miracles, Work / March 25, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

For Tiger who made it and Benny who didn't

To go down each day
into your grave

And rise
at end of shift
with Lazarus-like joy

Except when you don’t

In celebration of Lazarus Saturday

Hi Ho Hi Ho

Audio Recordings, Farm, Poems about Poetry, Ranch Life / tagged Joy, Work / March 24, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Work

I sometimes think about it, but not too hard

Like, shouldn’t there be a different word
for doing what we love or hate for money

Like how I got to drive big trucks at eighteen
that I dreamed about at eight
and they paid me

Like playing cowboy and riding the range
where the deer and the antelope play
and getting paid

Building buildings bigger than Lego
and getting paid

Maybe work is about being serious
but I seriously question that too

I mean, what can be more joyous and serious
than a child adding one last block to his tower
or me, as I write this poem and look up
to see it is 1:25 in the morning

Living Aloha

Audio Recordings, Travel / tagged Hawaii, Paradise, Poverty, Work / March 23, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

On Kauai an average house
costs half a million or more
while half the people and more
still work for a minimum wage

Around a grass shack tenement
broken handles of tired tools
lie buried in lava gravel
and broken hands that held them
hold a cut-rate mainland beer

The wind from the ocean stirs
creaking limbs on a dry lanai
orchid's breath still whispering
songs of an old deep joy

1 Reply

Dark Side of Oahu

Audio Recordings, Travel / tagged Alcohol, Danger, Hawaii / March 22, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

There are bars down by the docks
with no umbrellas in the drinks

There are dark eyes in the smoke
that filet you like a fish

Play the wrong song on the jukebox
they turn silent on you as a shark

Me and Buff, college smartass dumb
swimming far beyond our depth

Alive because they must have thought
Too small, let's throw them back

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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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