MAY 1ST MAYDAY
On my 4th birthday
I am pushed off the front page
by the announcement that Hitler is dead
A mere sixty six years later
they do it again for Bin Laden
Enough already
with all of this mass murdering
and pissing on my candles
Author Archives: neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com
PLAYING OLD 78s AT THE NURSING HOME
PLAYING OLD 78s AT THE NURSING HOME
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 humor still intact, replies
That would explain why he never comes to visit
NEIGHBORLY
NEIGHBORLY
On gravel roads
there are three tracks not four
Nobody gets to pass anybody
without noticing that they’re there
Courtesy and survival still
well entwined out where folks are few
THE BARNSTORMER AND THE BOY
THE BARNSTORMER AND THE BOY
In the little plane, just the pilot and me
up up up into the prairie air
Climbing and gliding and floating free
high above the county fair
The town looked small from way up there
but hell… it looked small from anywhere
It was the changing people into ants
that I loved the best and wanted again
Being on the wrong side of relative bigness
had been causing me a lot of pain
SUNDAY AT MARIA’S
SUNDAY AT MARIA’S
(for Patricia Fiske)
The kind of church
you only get in Austin
All the great gospel singing
without the sermon
And when you put your money
in the collection plate
You get back not only blessings
but also, a taco and a beer
ALWAYS FOR THE FIRST TIME
ALWAYS FOR THE FIRST TIME
for Andre Breton
Mary Oliver has written another great poem,
That is to be expected you say
she is a great poet after all
It’s only Houdini
getting out of his chains again
no big deal, he is Houdini isn’t he
Oh no my friends
Notwithstanding there might be
a little less effort each time
a little less pain and pushing
at the beginning and the end
a miracle is still a miracle
no matter how often it happens
Take birth for instance
JOHN AND MARY
JOHN AND MARY
John Berry writes a poem
for his dear departed Mary
and reads it at all the open mics
It is a lovely poem
about parallel universes
and all the other ways
they might have met
or never met at all
He tells me that it changes
every time he reads it
which makes sense
since it is well known
that you can never step
in the same poem twice
I hear that it is also true of rivers
THE LITTLE DUTCH BOY WRITES POETRY
THE LITTLE DUTCH BOY WRITES POETRY
Only a drop or two
and only from time to time
but you can feel the weight
of the whole North Sea behind it
GALVESTON ISLAND CALM
GALVESTON ISLAND CALM
Palm trees bending to the right
two birds flying to the left
Palm trees rooted in the sand
birds break even with the wind
Nothing moving for the moment
quick now snap the picture
It will stay that way forever
FROG BASKING IN WATER
FROG BASKING IN WATER
The old pond;
A frog jumps in
The sound of the water
Basho
Basho oh Basho
I too have a frog in my pond
At night he sings
many times his size
In evening he sits
still as a haiku master
on the wide stone ledge
where water flows before falling
splitting it
around and over his back
head above the water
big eyes smililng