January 2025 – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Monthly Archives: January 2025

Lunar New Year 2025

Audio Recordings / tagged Astrology, Trump, Year of the Snake / January 31, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

If you were born in the year of the sign of the snake you can also celebrate your birthday and my birthday too

And wonder how did they see so far and wise
through those half-opened eyes
the gifts and challenges of our lives

All our weaknesses and strengths
and strategies to thrive and survive
what rode in on the dragon last year

Centrepiece

Audio Recordings / tagged Deception, Learning / January 18, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

You don't see
that many bowls
of wax fruit anymore

Bananas and apples
and orange and grapes
in seasons when there were none

Supermarkets supersede
and three-year-olds have to learn
what they have to learn another way

Cars with Snarls

Audio Recordings, Haiku / tagged Vehicles / January 17, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

In these angry times
all the cars wear angry snarls
harder to smile back

Terminal

Audio Recordings, Travel / tagged Death, Heaven, Hell, Materialism, Temptation / January 15, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Direct flights
to heaven are for angels only

Most of us will have to go
through hell or Dallas on the way

Your luggage will be lost in Denver
and moving sidewalks mostly don't

The whole hall is one long mall
meant to tempt you on your way
and the big board for listing gates
never states which is the pearly one

Photo of Denver International Airport

Poems in Bottles

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry / January 12, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Not the ones you find
curled up with the worm
in the bottom of a bottle

The ones you send
from your dry desert isle
tight wrapped and firmly corked
hoping to get or give some HELP

Some to crash on a lava shore
black as Poe's raven's nevermore

Some apropos to
the muddy bank of the river Styx
odes to the dead long an idée fixe

Some to open and read and fall in love
and try to swim to him who couldn't swim

One driven back by wind and wave
to the poet's feet when only it could save

Poetry Immersion Therapy

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry, Travel / tagged Art & Artists, Discovery, Growth / January 11, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

In Canada me and Graham
the only live people writing poems
and his were better than mine

In Austin everybody wrote poetry
although some called it music
and all of them were better than me
and that's the perfect place to be

So I followed them from mic to mic
and let their water clear my mind

And other bards from other lands
came to drink from that Barton Spring

Maynard Download

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry / tagged Connection, Death, Guides, Technology / January 10, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Maynard and Leanne
were love and learning
writers teachers and seers

Leanne had gone on
leaving Maynard her learning
you know how it is these days
one iphone touching another

All afternoon he shared stories
some in words, some in code
one iphone touching another

Not sure about the passwords
but if you lean close to this poem

https://pathoftheheartwriting.com/guidance

You Think Therefore I Am

Audio Recordings / tagged Attention, Fear, Insecurity, Social Media, Trump / January 9, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

William Stafford's mother
spoke of some people in town as
"So boring you get tired of them
even when they're not around"

Is it fear that that is us
that wakes us all a-sweat at two a.m.
to send out all cap tweets
hoping their echoes will make us real

Poets in Peacetime

Audio Recordings, News, Poems about Poetry / tagged Commentary, Protest, Readiness / January 8, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Poets like soldiers
are of little value in times of peace
But it is important that
they maintain their readiness
with a certain degree of discipline
some exercises with live ammunition
and long marches with heavy packs

Letter to Erato

Audio Recordings, News, Poems about Poetry / tagged Change, Current Events, Inspiration, Muse, Politics, Protest, Trudeau, Trump / January 7, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Dear Muse, What do we do's now

From your mountain
you have seen much peace and war
with saints, tyrants, and much more
and with every age gifted verse to fit it

From here this one looks like a doozy
with faces and words painted to deceive
and new forms daily formed to disinform

Your poet flocks mill round your mountain
prey to false shepherds and real wolves

Shall we bring back Basho, no
or Ali to sting like a butterfly float like bee
or roll back sunsets cowboys have rode into

No, and no, these days call
for new forms of protest and of praise
these days have us on our knees - so please

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Nancy Fierstien on Eyes of FriendsNovember 6, 2025
Lovin' this one, line after line!
Nancy Fierstien on Light on LeavesNovember 2, 2025
Yet another favorite of mine! How can I hold back this "THANK YOU!" ???
Sandi Hebley on How Fallen AngelsAugust 17, 2025
Indeed!
Nancy Fierstien on Unremember ThatAugust 16, 2025
Gonna be inclined to share this one at my Poets' Tea reading tomorrow afternoon. Thanks, Neil!
Sandi Hebley on Memory Lane JoggingAugust 5, 2025
Lovely!

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