Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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A Neil a Day Poems

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

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

Enough Already

Audio Recordings, Family / tagged Dining, Feast, Language, Satisfaction, Sayings / October 14, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Pushing back from table
Dad would pronounce his
sufficiency as suffonsified

One of his colorisms
like the mechanical catch-all
Where the spindlededominom
spins around the hootenanny shaft

Never found
an application for the second
but still much wisdom in the first

Gratitude Junkie

Audio Recordings, Family, Travel / tagged Feast, Gathering, Thanksgiving / October 13, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Turkeys are not a migratory bird
but they'll be there when you get there

As long as it's after mid-October
and drumsticks and pumpkin pie
with the apples of my Canadian eye

And before the third week in November
where American friends have a table set
for my second thanksgiving of the year

Who wouldn't be doubly grateful for that

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

Impossible Things

Audio Recordings / tagged Aging, Alice in Wonderland, Belief, Faith, Fantasy / October 11, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The queen had believed, when young
as many as six before breakfast

The trick dear Alice
though you weren't told
is doing it when you're old

There's one now...

Trying to Imagine an Imaginary Friend

Audio Recordings, Family, Nostalgia, Ranch Life / tagged Childhood, imagination, Play / October 10, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

(for the Marcil Brothers)

Never had one as a kid
which could be attributed to
a lack of imagination or space

I make up it was the latter
every house we had was plenty full of and we did make up stories after dark
and take the parts of local heroes
who drove big trucks and drove them fast

If any of the sibs had a pretend co-pilot
they never let on as they careened
full speed and filled the room with
kicked up gravel on their way to fame

Jeep

Audio Recordings, Family, Ranch Life, Remembering, Travel / October 9, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Dad had a Willys Jeep
That took us to school for a while

In the wet it was wet, in the cold it was cold

Our baby teeth bounced from our jaws
And bruises covered every bum

We knew that it was built for war – it felt like war

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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Sandi Hebley on How Fallen AngelsAugust 17, 2025
Indeed!
Nancy Fierstien on Unremember ThatAugust 16, 2025
Gonna be inclined to share this one at my Poets' Tea reading tomorrow afternoon. Thanks, Neil!
Sandi Hebley on Memory Lane JoggingAugust 5, 2025
Lovely!
Sandi Hebley on Dad and Death at WarAugust 4, 2025
😢
Sandi Hebley on One for the AuntiesAugust 3, 2025
Wow!

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