Poems about Poetry – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Poems about Poetry

Troubled

Audio Recordings, News, Poems about Poetry / tagged Activism, Art & Artists, Fascism, Ireland, Oppression, Protest, Voice / March 18, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Irish poet Seamus Heaney
pen in his hand "snug as a gun"
was much troubled by the Troubles
and the always question of duty
of the armed to speak for the unarmed

Many died for their writing
while many more died in silence
and did anything they didn't say save anyone

Hells and Hitlers come and go
methinks there may be one again

What shall I do with this pen

1 Reply

Practicing

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry, Relationships / tagged Communication, Connection, Frustration / March 1, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

This morning I am practicing being a ghost
Thinking of all the people I can't quite touch
all the thirsts I can't quite quench

Waving my hands, reciting my poems
saying
see me ... see me

Image by Rudy and Peter Skitterians from Pixabay

Through Chicken Wire Darkly

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry / tagged Faith, Fear, Hope, Literature, War, Xenophobia / February 17, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The bounding beauty of foxes
if mostly lost on the housers of hens

A race any race
has a beauty in its face
seldom seen through crosshairs
or the fear of being seen through them

Kits and kittens give some hope
and reading the love bits of holy books
and the poetry of poets not named Poe

February

Audio Recordings, Environment, Poems about Poetry / tagged Optimism, Weather, Winter / February 13, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

February is the cruelest month
even if T.S. Eliot said it was April

Eliot wasn't from Saskatchewan
where February sits halfway between
winter's come and it ain't ever going to leave

It is also Valentines and Mandela free
so thinking about love will always help a lot
and remembering it's the shortest month we've got

1 Reply

Ancestry . Barn

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Cows, Family, Farm, Nostalgia, Poems about Poetry, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Art & Artists, Horses, Poetry & Storytelling / February 7, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Every poet of
childhood on a farm
will keep coming back

Every dust mote from the
straw and hay filled with DNA
and stories they are charged to tell

Red walls and black roof
and click of cow and clydesdale hoof
and every caution that their father taught
no amount of city money could have bought

Hail and drought can wipe crops out
but not barn memories whispering for a shout

1 Reply

Harrowing Experience

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry / tagged Deportation, Disruption, Immigrants, Robert Burns, Trump / January 25, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Wee, sleekit, cowrin. tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie. - Robert Burns

Two hundred and forty years ago
Robert Burns plowedshared through
a field mouse's home and contritely wrote:

That wee-bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble,

Magaman promising now
to replay the incident with intent
to plow through and scatter the straw
of all that they have earned and built

O, what a panic’s anns an breasties

With some comfort later in the poem

The best laid schemes
o’ Mice an’ Men Gang aft agley

Poems in Bottles

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry / January 12, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Not the ones you find
curled up with the worm
in the bottom of a bottle

The ones you send
from your dry desert isle
tight wrapped and firmly corked
hoping to get or give some HELP

Some to crash on a lava shore
black as Poe's raven's nevermore

Some apropos to
the muddy bank of the river Styx
odes to the dead long an idée fixe

Some to open and read and fall in love
and try to swim to him who couldn't swim

One driven back by wind and wave
to the poet's feet when only it could save

Poetry Immersion Therapy

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry, Travel / tagged Art & Artists, Discovery, Growth / January 11, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

In Canada me and Graham
the only live people writing poems
and his were better than mine

In Austin everybody wrote poetry
although some called it music
and all of them were better than me
and that's the perfect place to be

So I followed them from mic to mic
and let their water clear my mind

And other bards from other lands
came to drink from that Barton Spring

Maynard Download

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry / tagged Connection, Death, Guides, Technology / January 10, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Maynard and Leanne
were love and learning
writers teachers and seers

Leanne had gone on
leaving Maynard her learning
you know how it is these days
one iphone touching another

All afternoon he shared stories
some in words, some in code
one iphone touching another

Not sure about the passwords
but if you lean close to this poem

https://pathoftheheartwriting.com/guidance

Poets in Peacetime

Audio Recordings, News, Poems about Poetry / tagged Commentary, Protest, Readiness / January 8, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Poets like soldiers
are of little value in times of peace
But it is important that
they maintain their readiness
with a certain degree of discipline
some exercises with live ammunition
and long marches with heavy packs

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Nancy Fierstien on TroubledMarch 18, 2025
Keep writing, Neil. Keep writing and writing and writing…because you have so much tucked inside that is worth saying to…
Ken Christopher on Negative Space in New York CityMarch 17, 2025
Prairie boy in NYC
Anonymous on Cowboys Will Be BoysMarch 6, 2025
I love this poem make more like it
Nancy Fierstien on Redwoods in the RainFebruary 27, 2025
Love, love, love, love, love this one Neil!
Neil on Dog YearsFebruary 22, 2025
Thanks Kim, Sometimes the poems seem to know. Sorry for your loss, Neil

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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