Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Mary Oliver

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry, Travel / tagged Acceptance, Art & Artists, Connection, Envy / August 13, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Of all the poets I admire
only one did I envy

How she could take us all on her journey
remind us of the wild beauty of our lives
and the soft animal of our bodies

It is disowned parts of us I. know
that we hold too high or low

And yet I wanted to go where she could go

This year in the merry month of May
on a trip in search of other things
a book I didn't know she'd written
in a town where I didn't know she'd lived

I hung five days like her hummingbird
on the green wheel of its wings

Her flowers were my food
her town became my town
her dunes became my dunes

Sip by sip on that Cape Cod shore
I began to envy her less
and love her more

And that pretty green stone
I was taking with me
I threw it back into the sea

Poet Laureate at Ninety Five

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry / tagged Adversity, Aging, Art & Artists, Education, Resilience / August 12, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The new poet laureate is ninety five
he’s been working on his demons
for a long long time

Six weeks before the poet was born
his father burns his demons out
by drinking carbolic acid in the park

Mother burns father’s pictures
forbids mention of his name

Young Stanley finds one in the attic
and asks about the man

She tears the picture to shreds
without a word, and slaps him hard
six decades later he still felt the sting

Bright boy gets scholarship to Harvard
Okay but forget about teaching classes
these were not the days when a Jewish boy
could teach their ivy league asses

Marries a poet, moves to honeymoon farm
she disappears, never to be heard from again

The new poet laureate has had plenty of pain
each day he wakes as a poet, not a man of ninety five
still seeing everything new – still glad to be alive

Stanley Kunitz, Poet Laureate, Pulitzer Prize Winner, Teacher and Gardener (July 1905 – May 2006)

Alice’s Father

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry, Remembering / tagged Aging, Alzheimers/Dementia / August 11, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Farther and farther he sank
below the surface of dementia

And yet like a salmon
in his homeland of Scotland
we would rise to the words
of a favourite poem

Grab the hook and leap
the length of the line

Three Strikes

Audio Recordings, Remembering / tagged Aging, Alzheimers/Dementia, Baseball, Friendship, Sports / August 10, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

My sportswriter friend has Alzheimers now
and I wonder what happens
behind that bright brow

When we were kids, he was the guy
who knew each homer and pop fly
and every player's RBI

Grew up to travel with the pros
what he didn't know, why nobody knows

And now soggy-brained he tromps
through sub-sequitorial swamps
the mind once quick as a cat's
drowning among the stats

Rene Davis – Sportswriter for the Winnipeg Free Press

Playing Old 78s at the Nursing Home

Audio Recordings, Family, Nostalgia, Relationships, Remembering / tagged Aging, Alzheimers, Dementia, Forgetting, Memory / August 9, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Aunt Myrtle
skips a groove from time to time

The needle, still diamond sharp
plays 1952 for a round or two

Then the niceness of the people here
Grandpa's bad temper, and the size of the long kitchen at the farm

The sweetness of her husband
sometimes here and sometimes gone
and where is he now?

Reminded that he died some years ago with quick humour still intact, replies
That would explain why he never comes to visit

1 Reply

The Man in the Desert

Audio Recordings, Remembering / tagged Aging, Grief, Memory / August 8, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The man in the desert remembers
and a tear begins to form

A tear so long unleashed
ninety percent of the water is gone

Dragging its chain of crusted drops
it carves a white canyon
down his long and leathered face

A cracked tongue between cracked lips
reaches to taste it - Oh so sweet

Photo by Robert Murray on Unsplash

1 Reply

On the Pali with Jane

Audio Recordings, Remembering, Travel / August 7, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

We had a bottle of Champagne
that we won on the way from LA
for guessing the closest arrival time

We had Big Macs to make it a picnic

The Pali is a very high point on Oahu
the cliff is steep and the winds strong

They tell a story of a suicide jump
where the leaper was caught by the wind
and blown back to the vine-covered cliff
where he thought it over and climbed back up

We were happy for the jumper and happy for us

Memory Lane Jogging

Audio Recordings, Family, Nostalgia, Remembering / August 6, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

There are things I remember I forgot
like the music of my father’s swearing
when a heavy hammer had hit his thumb

And like the words that mother said
when she called us all in to go to bed

There are others another layer down
that digging alone I would never f ind
that someone else has to bring to mind

So I listen to stories by family and friend
till strings pop up to pull with a knot at the end

1 Reply

Little School on the Prairie

Audio Recordings / tagged Bilingualism, Education, Mistakes, School, Small Town / August 5, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Rural Saskatchewan's
attempts at bilingualism
were not always a success

School monument with misspelled ÉCOLE (the French word for school)

1 Reply

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

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Sandi Hebley on Ready for WinterOctober 26, 2026
😁😁
NEIL MEILI on Laughing With the DeadOctober 25, 2026
Thanks for the story Sandi, And bet he is and that I would have liked him Neil
Sandi Hebley on Okay Now – MostlyOctober 22, 2026
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Sandi Hebley on Laughing With the DeadOctober 21, 2026
One of my fondest memories is that the last full sentence my dad spoke was to tell a visitor a…
Sandi Hebley on BeemersOctober 18, 2026
Ha!!!

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