Cowboy Poetry – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Cowboy Poetry

John Deere

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry, Farm, Personal Growth, Ranch Life / tagged Humor, Tractor, Vibrations / December 21, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

After a poetry reading down in Texas
a couple of smart successful executive types who seemed to like what they came to hear are buying me a long necked beer

While searching for a common thread that between us there might be
we discovered that it's none other than a John Deere model 'D'

So we talk about the good old days
all growing up and farming wheat
and that old slow two cylinder's whump whump heartbeat

All marveling and remembering how you could stand on one all day
and still be fresh and ready to go out all night and play

We agreed at the time we weren't sure why
although I think I've got if figured now
and because of the kind of a guy I am
I'll gladly tell you now

You see

A little while back I run across a group
advertising a marvelous breakthrough
a mind improvement program teaching something completely new

If you give them a few hundred dollars
and about the best part of a year
they will take you from Beta to Alpha
relaxed as any guru and wise as any seer

So I buy all of their expensive gear
put those tiny speakers in each ear
and darned if I don't hear

The sound of an old John Deere

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Back to Calgary

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry, Poems about Poetry, Ranch Life / December 5, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Went back to Calgary
the home of the Stampede

Shook out my old lasso
and caught nine poems with a Houlihan throw

Would have liked to catch some more
but them doggies sometimes hide in dreams
and won't come out by keeping score

Threshing Time

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry, Family, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life / tagged Harvest, Wheat / October 12, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I remember at Christmas getting a great threshing machine
a block of wood with wooden spools nailed to the side
but I loved it as I loved the threshing

All through the long summer days I would walk
the fields with my dog
At night my mother rubbed strong liniment on four year old
legs: growing pains she said, although one always hurt
more and didn’t seem to grow any faster

And the grain grew too, and passed me, and was higher
than I was. And then the harvest and the wonder of it falling
to the binder and the magic of the machine as it tied the
sheaves and ke-chunked them into the carrier

Then the stooking – little teepees covering the prairie again
and the golden warmth of everything

And the threshing machine; they wouldn’t let me too close;
it might eat me like it ate those sheaves and like the men
in the crew could eat, and they could eat
even when it rained

While I sat for hours nose to wet window
watching the great gray dinosaur
deep in the timeless mists

And hot clear windless days when everything sang and
the big belt slapped and the machine came to life again
and wagons were on both sides
and the big horses were standing strong and ready
and switching flies with dignity

The sun caught the arch or the long plume of straw and
the chaff lifting and the old hands fed the machine in a
sort of easy sweat-oiled rhyme and the new hands stood
on the sheaves they tried to lift each time

And the old hands laughed, and the new hands laughed
and they were men together

Turtle Boots

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry / tagged Humor / June 10, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I bought a pair of boots one time
made from an old sea turtle’s hide
The prettiest boots you ever saw
but a little bit tight along the side

I figured it would only take a while
to break these babies in just right
and in the meantime at least I’d have
the pleasure of taking them off at night

Now a hundred years don’t seem long
to an old sea turtle, or his next of kin
but it appeared it was gonna take that long
to break those miserable damn boots in

I tried everything to ease that constant pain
I soaked ‘em, I oiled ‘em, I bent ‘em, I boiled ‘em
If anyone had suggestions, no matter how wild
I got out those boots and sure enough tried ‘em

But those son of a guns just continued to pinch
I couldn’t get them to move 1/16th of an inch
wild thoughts of destruction started filling my day
but the boots were too pretty I’d just give them away

I gave them to my younger brother first
by logic his feet should be smaller you see
but after a month or so he gave them back and said he just couldn’t accept all that charity

So I gave them away to friend after friend
but I guess gratitude ain’t what it used to be
the results were always the same in the end
I got those turtle boots back, but I mostly lost
the friend

and every time I got them back
I’d put them on and wear them a while
and never could figure how one pair of boots
could cause so much pain
and still have so much style

But I gave them at last to a chiropractor
down in Texas
and I didn’t get ‘em back
so I expect he’s got ‘em beat

because if he can’t adjust those boots
he can always adjust his feet

Hawaii Five Oh Oh

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry / tagged Hawaii, Horses, Humiliation, Pride, Shame / June 4, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

So beautiful
It could be an ad for anything

A young man and a beautiful young woman
gallop along a deserted white-sand Oahu beach

They wouldn’t include in the thirty second ad
how hard the cowboy from Canada is trying to impress the island maid

How many acres - how many broncs broken

She had given him her 16 hand Hunter to ride
and they’d left the silly English saddles behind

How good he feels about himself as the sand kicks up from hooves
how pride goeth before a rogue wave crashing at their feet
and the horse spooking
and the cowboy’s doing everything right for a quarter horse
and wrong for this one who goes left while he goes right

Nothing but gravity between him and his butt on the hard wet sand
The visible bruise lasts a week or two
Lifetime of therapists working on the shame

Cowboy Poetry

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Cows, Farm, Poems about Poetry, Ranch Life / March 22, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

This is not the poetry of pulling calves
in a cold wind and a foot or so of spring snow
with only a vest and a bottle of rye
to keep you dry

This
is the poetry
of that calf that would have died
standing on shaky legs
to drink warm milk
from the cow that would have died

Good Guy Bad Guy

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry / tagged Corruption, Integrity, Perception, Reform, Villain, Virtue / February 26, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Cowboy rides in
with his white had on to clean up the town

Cleaning up a town can be dirty work
and his hat's getting blacker and blacker

Not long now
till they ride him out of town on a rail

My Uncle Shot My Dog

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry, Family, Farm, Ranch Life, Relationships / tagged Death, Dogs, Forgiveness, Loyalty / December 1, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

My uncle shot my dog

My ever loving ever loyal saved me from the coyotes
Went back to the ranch to lead my parents to me
stuck in the mud - just like in the movies - Lassie dog

My uncle shot my dog

Maybe she had took to bitin’ people
if she did I’m sure they had it coming

Maybe she’d got to eatin’ the chickens
if she did she’d earned every one

Maybe she was old and sick and hurtin’
maybe she was better off dead than alive

I don’t remember anyone saying that
but I doubt it would’ve helped
Not when it’s your best friend - and you’re five

My uncle shot my dog

My uncle shot my dog
and went to his grave unforgiven
Maybe I can get it done before I go to mine

Roundup

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Cows, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Branding, Work / July 9, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

It's about the hardest dustiest best work a man can get

The pride of the heeling rope, thrown snake quick fro a good horse and the slow steady pull, dragging the white face out where the boys with the hot irons can record the feat

Three hundred cows sing of calves lost and found, and above and through it all the full strong laugh of one of the boys where a slip was made or a kick well placed

At the end of the day, you wrap a rope sore hand around a spring cold beer, and lean back against the old pole fence deep in the pain, and the sweat, and the moment

Completely released from the wheel of desire
There's no place you'd rather be
There's no one you'd rather be with
and you're too damned tired to move anyway

Cowboys Will Be Boys

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Cows, Farm, Ranch Life, Relationships / April 30, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

How funny is it
to be kicked by a cow
(at least compared to a horse)

Depends a lot
if it happens to you
or to your tightest friend

(By tight I mean
both close and liquored up)

Just one of those jokes
that girls don’t seem to get
not even in the calving pen

At least I’ve never seen
them doing their damndest
to get the one with broken ribs
to laugh so they can see them cry

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Gail on In-TuitionJanuary 2, 2025
Love it! “The cost of this is only in the not.”
Ken Christopher on Missing the MysteryDecember 30, 2024
Yes, the Mystery is what keeps it exciting
Ken Christopher on Christmas CardsDecember 29, 2024
Yep, the sleigh got us to town on train day and me to school every day, the poem is a…
Anonymous on Why Children Are ChristmasDecember 23, 2024
So simple, so captivating! Nice Neil to give me the feel :) Murray A
Ken Christopher on John DeereDecember 21, 2024
Love it❤️

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