September 2023 – Page 2 – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Monthly Archives: September 2023

Texas in the Title

Audio Recordings / tagged Music, Texas / September 20, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

If you want your song to be a hit
just put Texas in the title

Whether it's in your rear view mirror
or where all George Strait’s exes live

Austin Lounge Lizards trashing Dallas
or waltzing across it like Ernest Tubb

And the stars at night are big and bright
CLAP/CLAP/CLAP/CLAP/ /CLAP/CLAP/CLAP
Deep in the heart of Texas

Three thousand titles and more
with the songs and movies and books

So you know just what to do
to have the eyes of Texas on you too

And what was them is gonna be us
so pull over Willie we’re gettin on the bus

2 Replies

Time in Texas

Audio Recordings, Travel / September 19, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

You race it in Dallas
drown it in Houston
and dance with it in Austin

Any farther south
and you have to wrap it
around a siesta
A burrito with salsa
at both ends

Poetry Texas

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry, Travel / September 18, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

There's a town in Texas called Poetry

Look for the water tower
about twenty miles S.E. of Dallas

Make up, if you like, what's in the water

Bemused

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry, Travel / tagged Art & Artists, Gratitude / September 17, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

It is never wise to be
at all ungrateful to your muse

Though times she picks to bring her gifts
are ones few of us would choose

She does live on a mountain in Greece
while I'm scribbling in Texas at two AM
She's bright and alert and off to work
because it's nine in the morning to her

Mosaics

Audio Recordings, Travel / tagged Connections, Design, Greece / September 16, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

On Delos a floor caught our eye
with an Escher-like mosaic pattern

Optical illusions of rectangles in rows
still bright after thirty centuries

Next day in a New York airport
we take our seats in the lounge
fabric covering the chairs
in exact same pattern

Owls to Athens

Audio Recordings, Travel / tagged Greece / September 15, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

One does not take coal to Newcastle
or owls to Athens

But it is good to go
with an appreciation of coal and owls

It is also permitted to leave Newcastle
with a bit of coal in one's pocket

Or Athens with a small bronze of an owl

And memories of a questioning call
floating across the Agora
to the small cliff restaurant

Where we rest on the long climb down
from all the heights of the Acropolis

In Greece

Audio Recordings, Personal Growth, Travel / tagged Atlas, Echo, Illiad, mythology, Narcissus, Odysseus, Odyssey, Sisyphus, Tantalus / September 14, 2023 / 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
and 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

1 Reply

Greece – Independence Day 2000

Audio Recordings, Travel / tagged Conformity, Philosophy / September 13, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

We stand in the sunlight of Athens
birthplace of democracy, philosophy
theatre and reason

Here man First learned
true freedom

Created gods
in the image of his vices and his virtues
and learned to embrace and best them all

Stores in Athens close for the parade
people gather from miles around

For hours past the viewing stand
soldiers and sailors march in step

Overhead the jets and choppers
roar by in strict formation

Thirty deep and more
people push and flow and smile on cue

I search the marchers and the crowd
Looking for that one toga, one book
One independent mind - One ancient Greek

Below the Acropolis

Audio Recordings, Travel / tagged Greece / September 12, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

In the agora bright red flowers
from seeds older than Socrates or wisdom
converse among the grasses
and look up at the temple covered hill

All Greeks Were Not on the Argo

Audio Recordings, Travel / tagged Greece / September 11, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Some it seems
have never raised an anchor

Asking the way to Delphi
they knew the direction
though not the roads

They were only able
to point out the next place to ask

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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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