Cows – Page 2 – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Cows

Movies Got It Wrong

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Cowboys, Westerns, Work / November 27, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Most of the real cowboying
was riding off into the sunrise

Saddling up in the first half-light
to get to where the cattle are
while those doggies are still doggy

Do as much with them as you can
before the heat and the heel flies hit
then head your tired horses home

Sunsets ain't for riding into
they're meant for bullshit and beer
leaning on the fence like you earned it

The Farm, The Ranch and the Sweeping Scythe

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Environment, Farm, Nature, Ranch Life / tagged Adversity, Beauty, Death, Hardship, Weather / November 8, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Sunrise can be brilly bright
and all day long
everything out to get you

The horse can kick or fall
the bull has horns of steel

Every machine is grinding its teeth
in wait for a chance to bite

and every snowstorm
eager to find you
too far from the barn
and stiffen you like the manure-pile cat

The sunsets worth surviving for

1 Reply

News Haikus

Audio Recordings, Cows, Farm, Haiku, News, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering / October 13, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Remember when news
was only some mare’s tail clouds
meaning rain was soon

Remember when news
was but the red bull pawing
meaning time to run

Remember when news
was from here to the far fence
one ranch at a time

Where News is News

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Farm, News, Ranch Life / tagged NASA, Small Town, Space Travel / August 4, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

On April 16th 1972
Apollo 16 blasted off
for a landing on the moon

While on a farm
just outside Coderre Saskatchewan
a two headed calf was being born

For 50 miles
in all directions
one was bigger news than the other

Dreams of My Father

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Family, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Dreams / July 20, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Six weeks you lay in that coma
what dreams you had
I never asked, you never said

The telling of dreams
was not a morning ritual in our home

If in grade two
I had been asked of yours
I'd most likely have said
More cows and a better horse

Little Brown Jug

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Family, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Relationships / tagged Music / July 19, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

My father had three sons

and taught them all
how to tie a grain sack, how to cut a calf
how to talk to a horse you walked up behind so you wouldn't get kicked or killed

Good things to know
but none of us is working cattle now

He played a mean harmonica
would that he would have taught us that

One of author’s father’s favorite tunes. Here done by Glenn Miller

1 Reply

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

The Innocence of Snow

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Family, Farm, Nature, News, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering / January 2, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Winter
was winter
and all the world

When the only light was lamp
and the only power God
and the innocence of snow
lay soft on lad and land

When floating breath of kin and kine
was pure and white as well
and mankind too as far as we could tell

Antennae daily now
break down that door with news of war

Winter on the ranch
Kin = Family & Kine = Cattle

Only One Boss in the Corral

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Farm, Ranch Life / November 26, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

If you're in the corral at roundup time
you better be ready to think or listen fast

When half a ton of fear-blind beef
has a horn lined up with your ass
and the boss says jump you jump

Democracy is a thing of beauty
but there’s a time and a place for that

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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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