Farm – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Farm

Don’t Slam The …

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life / tagged Home / December 4, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

A screen door hangs
between screened porch
and indoors in our Austin home

As such it is of little use
in keeping flying pests at bay

but the creaky creak it squeaks
brings back summers on the farm
and woe be to he who does it harm

Modern Medicine It Ain’t

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Farm, Ranch Life / November 24, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

10 cc's of Carnation Milk

Inject it just beneath the skin
pink eye cured in a Hereford calf

Old wives remedies you say
maybe that's how they got that way

Cowversations

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Cows, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Communication, Humor / November 21, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

One of the reasons I got out of ranching
was the long drought of good conversation

Cowhands
true to their fame are men of few words

Horses ain't bad
they will at least point their ears and pretend

But cows, it was the cows that did it
how they'd saucer eye like listening
while you chewed them out in detail
about all the dumb things that they'd done

Turn away to ruminate upon the lesson
and two days later kick you for no reason

Conversations with Horses

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Animals, Communication / November 20, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I never had a horse that talked to me
like Mister Ed on sixties TV

If I had I might have learned a lot

I did talk to them of course
but mostly by knee and rein and spur
and sometimes thank you for a job well done

As for messages for me, I can only imagine
- or count the number of times bucked off

Dances with Horses

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry, Family, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Horses / November 19, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

And what is the poem of Rusty
who slips at full gallop and picks up all four feet
and sets them down sure on the next dry spot

Of Lady so afraid of wire
she can buck fourteen hours tired
if a four inch chunk should strike a hoof

And the dance of the wild mare ikn the corral
who kicks and one foot goes by on each side of your head

And of the cold separated from mother's flank
by a gunny sack in the face and a quick gate
who turns a tight arc and comes back at you, and you see it in the eyes and duch and he sails over
taking out the top rail

And you hear that your father gave you
the first compliment you've ever hear of
by turning to the man beside him and saying

"The damned fool will get himself killed someday"

Losses

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Family, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Death, Grief / November 8, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Empty as a mouth full of snow - Lois P. Jones

We lost another calf
we lost another crop

We lost an uncle in the war

These are not like keys of city folks
that they find in their other coat

The things we lose out here
don't come back any more

Migration

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nature, Ranch Life, Travel / tagged Birds / October 22, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Fall falling
we hosted great flocks
on their long way south

Blizzards of snow geese
and ducks and cranes a-clatter

Grain left behind the combine
topping their tanks with premium

We'll welcome them again in Spring
callings calmed to a Texas drawl

Photo Credit: James Meili

Bone Density

Audio Recordings, Farm, Personal Growth, Ranch Life / tagged Healing, Horses, Injury, Pain, Survival / October 17, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Tamped into tensile strength
by a clunk-hoofed pinto
through leg, saddle and spine
to a headache in a Stetson hat

Hardened by the semi
permafrost of prairie winter

Flexible as knowing
drought and rain and pain
that have come and gone
and might come back again

A Shadow of My Farmer Self

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Farm, Poems about Poetry, Ranch Life / tagged Work / October 16, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The one
who got up with the summer sun
and toiled till the work was done
is done

The one
who would’ve slept the winter away
if it wasn’t for critters hungry ways
now versifies on his clock
with Seamus Heaney’s squat pen
resting between finger and thumb
instead of a three-tined pitchfork
raising blisters in the hot, hot sun

Credit: Seamus Heaney; DIGGING https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47555/digging

Back-Door-Quick-Steps

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life / tagged Bathroom, Humor, Latrine, Toilet / October 8, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The outhouse was
a hundred paces from the door
twice as long in winter

Language to describe the trip
as colourful as the orange wrappers
a seasonal break from catalogue pages

The pace of our trips
dependent on diet or minor disease
we even had some words for these
worthy enough to be a title of a poem

Image by Darya-Greengrey from Pixabay

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pat psooy on Saturday Night in AustinDecember 6, 2025
Kinda like that better than the shining lights of Vegas
Pamela on Grocery Shopping in AustinDecember 5, 2025
Hi Neil! And Neil is still Neil! Hoping to see you and Dorsey in the new year. My poems have…
Nancy Fierstien on Don’t Judge A House By Its CoverDecember 3, 2025
Another terse verse way to capture the way I feel about living under a blue tin roof for almost 30…
Iudita Harlan on Longing for FamilyNovember 26, 2025
Neil Lovely poem. Sending love to you and Darcy. Iudita
Nancy Fierstien on Eyes of FriendsNovember 6, 2025
Lovin' this one, line after line!

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