Poems about Poetry – Page 7 – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Poems about Poetry

Elbow Room Rap

Audio Recordings, Environment, Poems about Poetry, Travel / tagged Anxiety, City Life, Claustrophobia, Congestion, Crowds / April 17, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Poems know
where they come from

My poems grew up
in the wide open spaces
soft rolling hills and prairie lakes

You can lay a word down here
in places
that no one would step on
in ten years

My poems mostly come on gentle
and soft and safe like that

But - when my poems
come to the big cities
and the buildings start leanin in
on them (and now fallin in)
and the air gets thick
with cars and people
my poems,
I say my poems, start to panic

They start to talk
in short / hard / words
they flail around in all directions
they want to be rap poems
they want to be jackhammers
they want to be machine guns
they want to be big horns

They want to
aim their decibels
at all those Jericho walls
and they want them down
they want them down
right now

THEY SAY
Gimme some space
get outta my face

THEY SAY
gimme some space
get outta my face

THEY SAY
I need my place
gotta have someplace
I need my space
gotta have some space

THEY SAY
You can’t see me
gotta turn it up

THEY SAY
you can’t hear me
gotta turn it up

MY POEMS SAY

HELP!

1 Reply

Toronto to Detroit by Train

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry, Travel / April 6, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The sheep were soft upon the land
and there was magic in the day
as I sipped my rum and cola
and rhymed couplets all the way

Charlie Golf Xray November Golf

Audio Recordings, Flight, Pilots, Poems about Poetry / March 29, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Cowboy Poetry

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cowboy Poetry, Cows, Farm, Poems about Poetry, Ranch Life / March 22, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

This is not the poetry of pulling calves
in a cold wind and a foot or so of spring snow
with only a vest and a bottle of rye
to keep you dry

This
is the poetry
of that calf that would have died
standing on shaky legs
to drink warm milk
from the cow that would have died

Mona Lisa

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry, Relationships / tagged Art & Artists, Inspiration, Muse / March 12, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I'm so thankful you were there
like a Mona Lisa fair

To show me things I'd never see
and to model for my poetry

Which is not to compare
the artist or the style

But only to confirm again
the value of a smile

The Poetry Reading

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry, Ranch Life / March 4, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The secret to hauling horses
is to step on the gas fast
hit the brakes hard then the gas again
A few rounds of that
and their feet are far-apart and well-set
You can pretty much
do what you like for the rest of the trip

The Little Dutch Boy Writes Poetry

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry / March 2, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Only a drop or two
and only from time to time
but you can feel the weight
of the whole North Sea behind it

Image by luijk from Pixabay

Poetry at Bergen

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry, Travel / tagged Language / March 1, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

If Austin is the Athens of America
Bergen is the Austin of Holland

Sunday afternoon
reading in seven languages

Feeling the difference

Harsh precision of the Dutch
If you could understand the
language
you would understand the poem

Russian
The power of
a shot of cold vodka
and survival on the steppes

Afrikaans
Dutch rubbed smooth
by the soft hills of Africa

Latin
Still the mother of language
singing through her children

Spanish
Music of Lorca
moving your body as you listen

French
Dark musings of Rimbaud
a shrug in every verb

English
The fish does not see water
but there was food everywhere

Edible Books

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry / tagged Art & Artists, Nurture, Writing / February 29, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Don't ask me who's influenced me. A lion is made up of all the lambs he's digested, and I've been reading all my life - Giorgos Seferis

A hut may be a granary, a mansion a desert
Where are the books piled Dagwood deep
Where does your mother read you to sleep

Where do the mangoes of the South and the spices of the East mix in feast

How To Write Good

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry / tagged Education / February 28, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

(for Maia, age eleven)

Granddaughter I might say
read some Ernest Hemingway

A good place to start might be
"The Old Man and the Sea"

Watch how he draws arrows
pointing to an empty space
until a picture appears

If we're going to know it
you're going to have to show it

And if you want to say you're sad
don't say you're sad - that's bad

Try something like -

She came home after the spat
didn't even say hello to the cat
Threw herself down
and cried her way through
two
pillows
and a mattress
until the drops began to fall
on the head
of her sister in the lower bed

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pat psooy on Wood River WindingsMay 4, 2025
A very good poem!!!
Tom on Basketball in CanadaApril 18, 2025
Neil, as you may know we live about 15 miles from his former farm. The locals have installed a bronze…
Ken Christopher on Hockey Night in CanadaApril 17, 2025
Good one, it’s still goin on
Ken Christopher on ShitstormApril 4, 2025
My former comment had an error, should have read: Great poem Neil, has some slippery elements that mix it up…
Kenneth on Walden PondApril 3, 2025
Siblants interlapping with interference waves construct this delightful hologram of spring: well done my friend

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Poems about Poetry
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String Too Short To Save
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