Cowboy Poetry – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Cowboy Poetry

Turtle Boots

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry / tagged Humor / June 10, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I bought a pair of boots one time
made from an old sea turtle’s hide
The prettiest boots you ever saw
but a little bit tight along the side

I figured it would only take a while
to break these babies in just right
and in the meantime at least I’d have
the pleasure of taking them off at night

Now a hundred years don’t seem long
to an old sea turtle, or his next of kin
but it appeared it was gonna take that long
to break those miserable damn boots in

I tried everything to ease that constant pain
I soaked ‘em, I oiled ‘em, I bent ‘em, I boiled ‘em
If anyone had suggestions, no matter how wild
I got out those boots and sure enough tried ‘em

But those son of a guns just continued to pinch
I couldn’t get them to move 1/16th of an inch
wild thoughts of destruction started filling my day
but the boots were too pretty I’d just give them away

I gave them to my younger brother first
by logic his feet should be smaller you see
but after a month or so he gave them back and said he just couldn’t accept all that charity

So I gave them away to friend after friend
but I guess gratitude ain’t what it used to be
the results were always the same in the end
I got those turtle boots back, but I mostly lost
the friend

and every time I got them back
I’d put them on and wear them a while
and never could figure how one pair of boots
could cause so much pain
and still have so much style

But I gave them at last to a chiropractor
down in Texas
and I didn’t get ‘em back
so I expect he’s got ‘em beat

because if he can’t adjust those boots
he can always adjust his feet

Hawaii Five Oh Oh

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry / tagged Hawaii, Horses, Humiliation, Pride, Shame / June 4, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

So beautiful
It could be an ad for anything

A young man and a beautiful young woman
gallop along a deserted white-sand Oahu beach

They wouldn’t include in the thirty second ad
how hard the cowboy from Canada is trying to impress the island maid

How many acres - how many broncs broken

She had given him her 16 hand Hunter to ride
and they’d left the silly English saddles behind

How good he feels about himself as the sand kicks up from hooves
how pride goeth before a rogue wave crashing at their feet
and the horse spooking
and the cowboy’s doing everything right for a quarter horse
and wrong for this one who goes left while he goes right

Nothing but gravity between him and his butt on the hard wet sand
The visible bruise lasts a week or two
Lifetime of therapists working on the shame

Cowboy Poetry

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Cows, Farm, Poems about Poetry, Ranch Life / March 22, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

This is not the poetry of pulling calves
in a cold wind and a foot or so of spring snow
with only a vest and a bottle of rye
to keep you dry

This
is the poetry
of that calf that would have died
standing on shaky legs
to drink warm milk
from the cow that would have died

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

My Uncle Shot My Dog

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry, Family, Farm, Ranch Life, Relationships / tagged Death, Dogs, Forgiveness, Loyalty / December 1, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

My uncle shot my dog

My ever loving ever loyal saved me from the coyotes
Went back to the ranch to lead my parents to me
stuck in the mud - just like in the movies - Lassie dog

My uncle shot my dog

Maybe she had took to bitin’ people
if she did I’m sure they had it coming

Maybe she’d got to eatin’ the chickens
if she did she’d earned every one

Maybe she was old and sick and hurtin’
maybe she was better off dead than alive

I don’t remember anyone saying that
but I doubt it would’ve helped
Not when it’s your best friend - and you’re five

My uncle shot my dog

My uncle shot my dog
and went to his grave unforgiven
Maybe I can get it done before I go to mine

Roundup

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Cows, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Branding, Work / July 9, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

It's about the hardest dustiest best work a man can get

The pride of the heeling rope, thrown snake quick fro a good horse and the slow steady pull, dragging the white face out where the boys with the hot irons can record the feat

Three hundred cows sing of calves lost and found, and above and through it all the full strong laugh of one of the boys where a slip was made or a kick well placed

At the end of the day, you wrap a rope sore hand around a spring cold beer, and lean back against the old pole fence deep in the pain, and the sweat, and the moment

Completely released from the wheel of desire
There's no place you'd rather be
There's no one you'd rather be with
and you're too damned tired to move anyway

Cowboys Will Be Boys

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Cows, Farm, Ranch Life, Relationships / April 30, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

How funny is it
to be kicked by a cow
(at least compared to a horse)

Depends a lot
if it happens to you
or to your tightest friend

(By tight I mean
both close and liquored up)

Just one of those jokes
that girls don’t seem to get
not even in the calving pen

At least I’ve never seen
them doing their damndest
to get the one with broken ribs
to laugh so they can see them cry

The Old Dry Guy and the Bath

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Relationships, Remembering / March 4, 2023 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The old timers were all settin around the general store
I think they'd been there forever, or a few days more
hocking up gossip, and spit and an occasional snore

And as it's always been, in the west or the east
the one who knew the most; said the least
He had a face like old harness and one bad eye
to myself I called him 'the old dry guy'

Late January one year the old boys were a buzz
old Jeb had got scalded and burned off some fuzz
He'd been bathing in his kitchen in the old tin tub
and reached across for the kettle to warm up the rub
slipping he'd spilt it and lost some skin and some hair
and the boys were all speculating' how much and where

They'd talked it around for three hours or more
when the old dry guy moved in his chair by the door

They all got real quiet and leaned closer to hear

He said: "Serves the damn fool right, takin a bath this time of year"

3 Replies

Too Crowded

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Cows, Family, Ranch Life, Travel / tagged Migration / November 6, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

My folks took some time off in the sixties from their Saskatchewan ranching and traveled down through South Texas
One day they stopped to talk to an old cowboy sittin and a wittlin on a rickety ranch porch
When he found out where they were from he said "Say - do you know a man up there by the name of Bill Prior?"
They said "Yes - he's an old bachelor who lives up past our north pasture, ,why do you ask?"
"Well" he said, "about 1928 Bill and I are out lookin for some strays when we see another rider coming over the furthest hill"

Bill says to me "It's getting too damn crowded down here, I'm heading for Canada"
"He turned his horse North and I haven't seen him since"

2 Replies

Motherin’ Up

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Cows, Family, Farm, Ranch Life, Relationships / tagged Coping, Grief / September 14, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Sometimes you lose a cow
sometimes you lose a calf
You wrap the orphan
in the dead calf's skin
and the mother takes her in
like kin
Gold enough there for a country song
It's a hurtin song - you can sing along
About true love died and true love gone
and foolin yourself just long enough
to keep on keeping on

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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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