Cowboy Poetry – Page 4 – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Cowboy Poetry

Memories that Stick #8 Flypaper in the Kitchen

Cowboy Poetry, Farm, Ranch Life / February 22, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Farms have flies
and choose who dies
and children learn it young

Ancient kings
put heads on pikes
to warn of upstarts fate

but didn’t have to listen to
the buzzing while they ate

Cowboy Chivalry

Cowboy Poetry, Ranch Life, Relationships / tagged Smoking / January 14, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The gallantry
to thumbnail strike the match
and cup the hands to shade the wind
to light the damsel’s cigarette

The courage
to kiss that breath

At The Broken Spoke

Cowboy Poetry, Farm, Haiku, Ranch Life, String Too Short To Save / tagged Austin / January 3, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Good advice from Tex
you can’t two-step in stirrups
leave the work at home

Rustlin’ Aint All About Cows

Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Nature, Travel / tagged Autumn / November 10, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Down by the Blanco as the fall dances start Sycamore trees in the Texas breeze rustle their skirts round their knobbly knees

Buffalo Chips

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Cows, Farm, Manure, Ranch Life / November 6, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Lily pads floating
on the sea of prairie grass

Heat for the tepees
or the homesteaders cabin

Nothing wasted in the West

And every boy knew
that a good sharp stick or a pointy-toed shoe
would let you know
if one was just right, or still a little too new

And I’m here to tell you, that compared to a
good dry chip
meeting a West wind’s invitation
a Frisbee is a weak and poor, plastic imitation

Baling Love

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Cows, Farm, Manure, Ranch Life / October 13, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

When it’s over 90 in July alfalfa gets dry
and blows into the knotter
and the knots won’t stay tied
So you ride on the bouncing back
where each ke-chunk of the plunger
blows chaff in your eye as you search for
loose ends of twine that you finally find
and tie into a new knot, with love, or not

Then you pile them in piles of five
to keep the wet weather at bay
and you pile them any which way
or you pile them with love and pride
pile them right like Frank Lloyd Wright

Hurried by a wind blowing in from Alaska
You handle that same bale again in the fall
tossing it up on the wagon, kneeing it with
bloody knees through thistle-torn jeans, or
an overhand flip with a three-tined fork and
the grace and precision of a pole vault champ

Fourth time you see that bale
you unload that wagon and make a stack
while chaff turns your collar to sandpaper
And you can do it so when you stand back
you can see every bale fits without a crack

Fifth time you see that bale
it’s winter and maybe forty below
prying frozen cubes out of that stack
where the cattle are waiting, with steam
rising from hot breath and fresh manure
and you carefully cut each Ariadne thread
so not even Theseus could follow it back
through their labyrinth of seven stomachs

Next time you see it is in late spring
when four feet of crap in the calf shed has
melted to the bottom and you’re in and out
with the front end loader and the ammonia
clearing a whole winter from your sinuses

And then off to the fields to spread it out and
complete the circle, trying to stay up wind
and as old Bob used to say, “keeping your
mouth open to keep your face clean”

All that to feed your family, and the world
all that with love, or not

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

2 Replies

Ode to the Farmer

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry, Farm, Ranch Life / October 12, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

No one will be surprised by the report
that farming is a very dangerous sport

What flapping empty-fingered gloves
point back to momentary lapses
What limbs with what power
have been taken off
by power take-offs

What tendons snapped like glass
and bones cut clean as grass
by unthinking mowers

And what of those neighbours
dead and true
who for a minute forgetting
what they knew
through red machines
combined with their grain
All these have earned his dusty tear
and many a “who’s next” fear

Year after year after year after year

And yet deep in the soils of time
the seeds of his goodness
are growing
while the world
turns in slow seasons

And he will be ready
when at last they declare
a true war on poverty
and are willing to bomb
with wheat

Kenny and Me

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry, Farm, Ranch Life, Relationships, Remembering / tagged Beer, Harvest, Youth / September 10, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Ranching at Eighteen
Together we were young
and strong and very bold
and together we could drink
more beer than we could hold

We could drive home late and fast
singing every Johnny Horton song
Then fall asleep for minutes
and still answer the morning gong

We would work it out in the hot hot sun
(so easy then did the poisons yield)
As we sweated bales with pitch forks
and passed gas
in a thousand acre field

Good Advice

Cowboy Poetry, Ranch Life, Relationships / September 5, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Whenever anything got broke or lost
Kim’s mother would always say:
Don’t cry over anything that can’t cry over you

Which is a good thing to remember
when your life becomes a country song
and your dog, and your wife
and your truck are gone

Your dog will miss you right away
and cry with the coyotes all the night
your wife will miss you later – maybe
and cry for all the coulda’s that might

but you’re sadly mistaken
if you think that old C-10 Chevy
following the repo truck down the lane
is going to miss you half as much as you miss it

Photo by Heather Mount on Unsplash

Old Barn Leaning

Cowboy Poetry, Farm, Ranch Life, Uncategorized / August 22, 2019 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Still standing by the grace
of planks to the east
wind to the west

and a world in every
dust mote memory

Image by Joan Greenman from Pixabay

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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!
Sandi Hebley on Dad and Death at WarAugust 4, 2025
😢
Sandi Hebley on One for the AuntiesAugust 3, 2025
Wow!

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