Poems about Poetry – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Poems about Poetry

Alden Nowlan’s Beard

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry / December 13, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The beard of Alden Nowlan
is a Maritimes beard

A Nova Scotia beard
and a New Brunswick Beard

A beard wind-thinned
and pain gurled

With a beard like that
best not sleep on the rocky ground

Well before morn it would grow into
what it grew out of

Oh to Neruda

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry, Relationships / tagged Chile, Love, Patriotism, sensuality / December 12, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Oh Pablo you rise up
from a land, long as a woman's back

And you have loved your land
as you would love a woman
and you have loved women as you loved
your land

Every rock and shoal of their coastlines
every mood of their tides

You have caressed them
with your mind and your heart
and your hands

And you have received the treasures
that must always rise up
from their endless depths
to meet such a touch

Missing Leonard

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry / tagged Grief / December 11, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Leonard Cohen is gone
He doesn't call, he doesn't write

So huddle with me now
fellow worshipers and weepers

Huddle with me now
round the poem and the song
and listen for the breadcrumbs
and the hint of old perfume

that speak of other ways to God
that through the holes
in Jesus and the goddess

For Irving Layton

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry / tagged Art & Artists, Creativity, Expression, Identity, Music / December 10, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

For Irving Layton and his rhythmic authority

Canada is a country now
said Tom Thomson and The Group of Seven
and we don't have to paint like England

Layton's poetry says the same
although with fewer rocks and trees
and been known to swear at times
as part of the morning wake up call

Leonard Cohen learned at his knee
and we now can sing our Hallelujah

Embracing Our Messengers

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry / tagged Communication, Wisdom / October 30, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

We are lived by powers we pretend to understand W.H. Auden

The demons and daemons are dancing

and the head of every pin thick with angels

The dead are with us and the long dead too
with messages for the world
and messages for me and you

We are all guests at Blake's
Marriage of Heaven and Hell
but do we say "I do"

Sagrada Familia

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry / tagged Architecture, Beauty, Church, Spain / October 25, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

It took Antoni Gaudi to see
that if a tree can be a cathedral
a cathedral can also be a tree

That is still stands is proof
that the branches from its trunks
can hold the canopy of the roof

It is trite and true to say
that Gaudi build poetry

and I'd love to build a poem
where one could come and sit

as softly on a hardwood pew
in a place so radiant lit

Poet Trees in Fall

Audio Recordings, Nature, Poems about Poetry / tagged Autumn, Communication / October 24, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

(for Irving Layton)

Branches naked in the wind
pointing to their works below
molding their way into the grave

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

Fun in the Kitchen

Audio Recordings, Family, Nostalgia, Poems about Poetry / tagged Feeding, Generosity / October 15, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The joy
I get putting
a poem on your plate

My mother got
three times a day
and fed more by it

Author’s parents in the new ranch kitchen

The Gift Horse

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry / tagged Acceptance, Generosity, Gratitude, suspicion / October 12, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

It is not so simple

If you question every action
you will find forces pull in other directions

If you look in the mouth of the horse
not all teeth will be straight
and many may have been grinding for some time

It is more likely
that happiness will be found
by looking deep in the mouth of the adage

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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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