Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Tag Archives: Music

Wind Instruments on the Ranch

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nature, Ranch Life / tagged Music / April 1, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Xylophone of the
standing-slab fence
around the cattle shed

Flute of caragana pod

Harp of the ribs
of shelterbelt trees
armor rusting at their fee

Image courtesy of Free Images

Minutia in March

Audio Recordings, Nature / tagged Birds, Music, Spring / March 31, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Watching
the in and out
of a soft brown throat
on a bud-bare branch
microseconds from the song

A Carolina Wren welcoming the spring

1 Reply

They Never Learned to Sing the Blues

Audio Recordings, Family / tagged Grief, Healing, Music / March 28, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Not being from the South
the early deaths of my father's mother and my mother's father
never made it into song

Not being from the South
the thirties blowing the farm away
and the salt scarring the young girls' legs
never made it into song

Not being from the South
the hymns in church never rocked the roof
No-one heeard, though they felt the pain
that never made it into song

Not being from the South
they never got to sing their blues away

Spit-Valve Blues

Audio Recordings / tagged Blues, Grief, Mourning, Music / March 27, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

On a trumpet or trombone
there's a valve
to let the moisture out

In a high school band it's mostly spit
Playing the blues it might be tears

Location Counts

Audio Recordings / tagged Jazz, Music / March 26, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Picking on the Banjo

Audio Recordings, Remembering / tagged Envy, Jealousy, Music, Talent / March 25, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

When I pick on a banjo
it's like a bully pickin on you
for your lunch money

In high school I tortured a trumpet
hitting the high notes and low
with many a glancing blow

While Johnny's boy, damn his hide
could pick up any instrument

Didn't have to think or practice
or anything
the music just told him
where to put his fingers

Mossbank II

Audio Recordings / tagged Childhood, Learning, Music, Noise, Practice / March 24, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Valve trombone and trumpet
Ernie and me
poisoning the air with practice

Her Mother Sings to Violets

Audio Recordings, Family, Nature, Relationships / tagged Motherhood, Music, Nurturing, Pregnancy / February 2, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Her mother sings to violets and they bloom
like her daughter that she sang to
and will sing to her budding daughter too
The garden going on

1 Reply

To Andrew and All the Saints

Audio Recordings / tagged Books, Charity, Church, Generosity, Music, Patrons, Philanthropy / December 15, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

In this season of giving
let us give thanks to all givers
and Andrew Carnegie by name

Carnegie who endowed almost three thousand libraries
to bring to many the joy of learning
and gifted over seven hundred organs
"to lessen the pain of the sermons"

And let us thank also
those who wrote the books
And those in the choirs and pews
who weekly raise their voice in praise

Singing in Showers and Cars

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life / tagged Joy, Music / December 6, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Kenny had a booming voice
and could carry a tune
and anyone who couldn't

Singing in the shower
you only have yourself and water
and the echoes of the walls

The cubic space in an old pickup cab
is about the same as a shower stall

Sometimes we sang
with the windows open
and gravel heavy on the bass
Sometimes it was raining
as we synced along
singing every Johnny Horton song

in the best studio in the world
in the best of all worlds

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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
Ken Christopher on Minutia in MarchApril 1, 2025
21 beats, 4 past hyku, (sp); perhaps a new form. Beautiful poem

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