Author Archives: neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

THE HOLY GRAIL

Audio Recordings, Relationships / / by

THE HOLY GRAIL

Love is not love which alters
When it alteration finds
Shakespeare, sonnet 116

To deconsecrate a church
the relics must be removed
the stone of the altar broken
and consecrated glass removed
The Holy Catholic Church

And yet the breaking of the stone
may not remove
the lofty chords still lingering
in the loft

Or pull them down to
brimstone sermoned
floors

And you my love once sainted
in my eyes and heart
by the holy waters of endorphins
and other bawdy fluids

How can you ever be
anything less than holy

THE USELESS LAKE

Audio Recordings, Ranch Life / tagged , , / / by

THE USELESS LAKE

At the edge of our ranch
lay a large and useless lake

True, it was pretty enough
when the sun struck it just right

And the alkali
didn’t seem to be a problem
for the seeming millions
of cormorants, gulls and pelicans
who embraced it for their home

There were even men
living along the south shore
who may have been happy
mining its salt for money

What I meant was
it was water
that the cows couldn’t drink

CLEANING THE CALF SHED

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry, Farm / tagged , , , , / / by

CLEANING THE CALF SHED

Forty below outside
not much warmer
on the inside

A hundred little Herefords
dropping and stepping
where it freezes
where it drops

The calves are
four feet closer
to the roof
by April

After the thaw
sitting on the steel seat
of the little orange Allis
with the front end loader

Driving in hard
and pulling
out
fast

Manuria
in one nostril
spring
in the other