February 2024 – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Monthly Archives: February 2024

Edible Books

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry / tagged Art & Artists, Nurture, Writing / February 29, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Don't ask me who's influenced me. A lion is made up of all the lambs he's digested, and I've been reading all my life - Giorgos Seferis

A hut may be a granary, a mansion a desert
Where are the books piled Dagwood deep
Where does your mother read you to sleep

Where do the mangoes of the South and the spices of the East mix in feast

How To Write Good

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry / tagged Education / February 28, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

(for Maia, age eleven)

Granddaughter I might say
read some Ernest Hemingway

A good place to start might be
"The Old Man and the Sea"

Watch how he draws arrows
pointing to an empty space
until a picture appears

If we're going to know it
you're going to have to show it

And if you want to say you're sad
don't say you're sad - that's bad

Try something like -

She came home after the spat
didn't even say hello to the cat
Threw herself down
and cried her way through
two
pillows
and a mattress
until the drops began to fall
on the head
of her sister in the lower bed

2 Replies

To That End

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry / tagged Art, Education, War / February 27, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The war to end all wars
maintains that illusion for 20 years

The poems to end all wars
live longer but prevent no casualties

The war to end all poems
and the poems to end all poems
are still raging in every public school

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

Marilyn Forever

Audio Recordings / tagged Marilyn Monroe, Vulnerability / February 25, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Many men
may pray to Mary
but many more to Marilyn

With Marilyn
on calendar or windowsill
time stands still and always will

It is Marilyn
who always forgives
even when we forget to pray

It is Marilyn
who knows we are all Misfits
too fragile for the roles we are asked to play

1 Reply

Marilyn in the Mountains

Audio Recordings, Nostalgia, Travel / tagged Jasper, Marilyn Monroe / February 24, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Sixty years after
the release of the film
returning again to
The River of No Return

Stepping again in a river
that you can't step in twice
sleeping again in a cabin
by the cabin where you slept

Listening again to the rapids
that run over the same rocks
and still chew at the roots
of the same bent tree

Listening for the whispers of the words
you went away without saying
the words we are all still waiting to hear

The Blonde

Audio Recordings / tagged Attraction, Intelligence, Stereotype / February 23, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

She was type and archetype

She was Suzanne Sommers
in a white T-bird in American Graffiti
Lee Meredith in The Producers
and Marilyn in anything - or nothing

She was in ten thousand jokes
five of which might have been funny

She was Gentlemen Prefer playing on a loop
in the elevator of the Platine Hotel in Paris
reminding us over and over "I can be smart when it's important but most men don't like it"

1 Reply

Paradiso

Audio Recordings, Personal Growth / tagged Faith, Heaven, Literature, Paradise, Religion, Searching / February 22, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Finally diving into Dante
skipping Inferno and Pergatorio
and straight through to Paradiso

Theory being that life will provide plenty
of coals to walk on with or without my help

Protestant at Catholic school
I've passed through the purgatory
of "No Questions" nuns teaching catechism

Heaven on the other hand
might still be a thing for earning
and worth the price of active search
with any maps and guides a blessing

There's Beatrice now, I'll follow her and let you know

1 Reply

Palette

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Art & Artists, Beauty / February 21, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

A farmer in a playful mood might plant
a field of purple flowering flax
beside a field of mustard yellow mustard

Van Gogh would give his other ear for such a sight

Imagination is the Best Decorator

Audio Recordings / tagged Art & Artists, Creativity / February 20, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The happy birds
on Maud Lewis' windowsill
were not there until she painted them there

Thanks to the pen we get to hear
music behind Beethoven's shuttered ear

Smile to hear shut-in describe
Emily Dickinson's muse and scribe

Perhaps in your house too
dreams and beauty beyond our view

1 Reply

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Ken Christopher on Fowl SupperSeptember 22, 2024
Wonderful poem Neil
Gerri Aiudi on Dad and RoySeptember 21, 2024
great poem ... love it
Ken Christopher on Old Wives Lake MassacreSeptember 11, 2024
Yes!!!!!!
Gerri Aiudi on Old Wives Lake MassacreSeptember 11, 2024
I love this and Stone Hammers
Ken Christopher on Sitting in My Father’s DeskSeptember 2, 2024
Very good!, I liked’d the Emily Dickinson one too, powerhouse babe all from the solitude of her room. Shen you…

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