Cowboy Poetry – Page 4 – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Cowboy Poetry

The Farm, The Ranch and the Sweeping Scythe

Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Cows, Environment, Farm, Manure, Nature, Ranch Life / May 6, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Sunrise can be brilly bright
and all day long
everything out to get you

The horse can kick or fall
the bull has horns of steel

Every machine is grinding its teeth
in wait for a chance to bite

and every snowstorm
eager to find you
too far from the barn
and stiffen you like the manure-pile cat

The sunsets worth surviving for

1 Reply

The Farm, The Ranch and the Need for God

Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Cows, Family, Farm, Nature, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering / May 5, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Who pray to when the rains don’t come
who forget to thank when they do

Who curse when the John Deere breaks
and the cow jumps over the moon
(by the moon of course I mean
the fence to the alfalfa field)

Who in the long nights pondering
under stars too cold to be suns
a word big enough for big — Needlepoint picture of “The Old Home Place” by the author’s dad, Walter Meili
which he created as part of rehabilitation following his stroke

1 Reply

Lifebuoy

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry, Family, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering / April 25, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I never have learned to swear very well which just goes to show that training will tell
That there is much to be said for good homes and payoffs for stern discipline and hope
It's not that I don't know the words
but they all still taste like soap.

Old School

Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Cows, Family, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Education / March 3, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Uncle Emil, a good man
through and through, knew school

Not from being there
but from watching those who had

Four years of university
and he still can’t milk a cow

The Cowboys The Pilots and Poets

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry, Pilots, Poems about Poetry, Ranch Life / February 28, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The Cowboys, the Pilots and Poets
The girls they say love them all

For the pilots have an air of the danger
of those who can die if they fall

While a poet’s crushed-petal scent
reflects all their beauty and pain

And a cowboy has a feel of the open
and a smell we won’t speak of again

Maybe the pilots help them feel
life’s edge of purest blue

While the poets act as mirrors
to depths they never knew

And the cowboys oh the cowboys
can touch them where it hurts

And they’ve got those fast
snap button shirts

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

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Sandi Hebley on Holding Up the LineAugust 13, 2026
Awwww!
Joy on Reincarnation by CloudAugust 10, 2026
Watching clouds move across the sky, The way they did years ago, Growing up on the prarie, watching sky and…
Sandi Hebley on Red-Winged BlackbirdAugust 3, 2026
This is a good one!
Sandi Hebley on The Man in the Desert RemembersJuly 21, 2026
Wow!
JM on The Man in the Desert RemembersJuly 21, 2026
This one really hit home Thank you

Audio Recordings
Cattle
Cowboy Poetry
Cows
Environment
Family
Farm
Flight
Haiku
Limerick
Manure
Nature
News
Nostalgia
Personal Growth
Pilots
Poems about Poetry
Ranch Life
Relationships
Remembering
String Too Short To Save
Travel
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