Travel – Page 7 – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Travel

Budapest

Audio Recordings, Remembering, Travel / tagged Broken Promises, Hungary, Immigrants, Invasion, Occupation, Refugees, Resistance, Revolution, Russia, Soviet Union, Uprising / October 24, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

This is the town of Tibor
who came to Canada
and tried to teach us soccer

These are the bullet holes
from f ifty six
when he was sixteen

Bullet holes made
by him shooting at Russians
or by Russians shooting at him

Here is the statue of Imre Nagy
standing on a bridge looking west
for the promised help that never came

Growing Younger – Greece 2000

Audio Recordings, Travel / tagged Aging, Humor, Philosophy, Socrates, Wisdom / October 19, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Standing in front of the statues of the wise
noting how very wise they were
to be born at a ripe old age
and grow younger every year

Socrates for instance
(469-399)
certainly got it right
being born at seventy
and working backwards
to that point of light

Saw Once From A Plane

Audio Recordings, Flight, Haiku, Travel / October 17, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

A Farewell to Eric

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry, Relationships, Travel / tagged Aboriginal, Death, Elders, First Nations, Grief, Magic, Mysticism, Native, Shaman, South America / September 26, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

In nineteen seventy five
In the rainforests of Venezuela
Eric lived for a year with the Yanomami

He also lived with the Hunkpapa
the little people that only the shamans see
unless you toke what the shamans toke
then you can see them too

When Eric was ready to go home
the Yanomami gathered by the river
and wailed and mourned as if he'd died

Eric says his goodbyes and tries to start his boat
Tuned up, new plugs and all, but it just won't start

He pulls and pulls while the tribesmen wail

After what seems like a very long time
the shame comes down to the boat
and asks Eric if he's sure he must leave

Eric insists again that the time has come

The shaman admits that he has placed Hunkpapas in the motor to keep him there

He pulls them out one by one
juggling them hot in his hands
and throws them steaming into the river
One pull and the engine starts

In two thousand and twelve in Austin
Eric is ready to go home again
Many wail and wish that he would stay
by he knows that it is time to leave

At times like this it helps
to have a shaman for a friend

John Hawk flies in and reads
Eric's poems to the Hunkpapas
and watches as the little people leave
It takes a few pulls, but the motor starts

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

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Ken Christopher on ShitstormApril 4, 2025
My former comment had an error, should have read: Great poem Neil, has some slippery elements that mix it up…
Kenneth on Walden PondApril 3, 2025
Siblants interlapping with interference waves construct this delightful hologram of spring: well done my friend
Ken Christopher on Minutia in MarchApril 1, 2025
21 beats, 4 past hyku, (sp); perhaps a new form. Beautiful poem
Ken Christopher on Father’s PoemMarch 29, 2025
Lovely
Ken on MossbankMarch 23, 2025
Beautiful, that could go on a t-shirt

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