Audio Recordings – Page 72 – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Audio Recordings

What’s in a Name

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry, Travel / tagged Beauty, Immigration, Italy / September 23, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

for Rina Ferrarelli

San Giovanni in Fiore
translates to St. John in bloom

One could ponder whether the radiance is flowers or saint or both

We know a poet from there
transplanted to America - Still in bloom

Fowl Supper

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life, Relationships / tagged Community, Harvest, Sharing / September 22, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Don't call it fall
even though it happens then

Because it's all
about turkey and the trimmings
and the trimmings are community

Men had the toil and the joy
of bringing in the sheaves
Women the toil and joy
of turning them into bread and pies

In Tibet and the Southwest states
sand paintings are made and blown away
nothing is permanent so they say
nobody counts how long the feelings stay

1 Reply

Dad and Roy

Audio Recordings, Relationships / tagged Death, Friendship, Humor / September 21, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Dad and Roy were the best of friends
they drank and fought and played
and laughed like nobody laughed
for fifty years and more

Dad had a room in the nursing home
way down at the end of the hall
When Roy was admitted as well
a nurse wheeled him down that hall

They sat footrest to footrest
then Roy said "So it's come to this"
and they both had a hell of a laugh

Dad died in late December
Roy lasted three months more
They were buried twenty feet apart
in the prairie town where they played

I can see them there now
sitting on their shiny new stones
having a smoke and a chew
and a good pull on a forty of rye

Roy says "So it's come to this"
and they both have a hell of a laugh

1 Reply

Why Now

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Ranch Life, Relationships / tagged Frustration, Work / September 20, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Why Now! Dad would say
when anything at all broke
in the middle of a busy day
of farming and ranching work

Wasn't sure if he was mad
at the gods or at me (It felt like me)

No use to say that things break from use and most often when you're using them
it was a personal affront in every case
purely intended to inconvenience him

Retired and attired for an old friend's birthday party
when the phone rang to say Canceled
because of the guest of honor's sudden death

The red fire again climbing up the whites of his eyes

Pulling Pipe

Audio Recordings, Cattle, Cows, Family, Farm, Poems about Poetry, Ranch Life / tagged Community, Heroes, Struggle, Work / September 18, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Trouble down the well
and me, my dad and my brothers
are Texas roughnecks

pulling, spinning and stacking pipe
pipe and rod and "Careful dammit!
If you drop that rod the well is shot"

We're Red Adair, fighting a fire
we're wet and muddy and cold and made
and we've got to get it done by dark

The gold down there's not black but red
and iron rich sea hiding away
from the pulling power of the prairie sun

Looking back fifty years from a poet's perch

I pull, spin and stack
metaphor and meaining

Back then it was just men
doing what they had to do

and white-faced cattle waiting

Father Fighting the Prairie Fire

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Protection, Sacrifice, Wildfire / September 17, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

All week
he came home while we slept
and left before we woke
leaving trails of courage and smoke

He's been gone a long time this time

Our early books
had pictures and stories
of a peaceful heaven and a red hot hell

Though none of the men on the fire-line
between the two to keep the children safe

Fair Ball

Audio Recordings, Family, Relationships / tagged Baseball, Childhood, Sport, Support / September 16, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

So what if my father
only came out once
to watch me play baseball

He was a busy man

I caught a hard line drive

Catching for the Wilcox Co-ops

Audio Recordings / tagged Baseball, Community, Socialism, Sport, Team / September 15, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The co-operative character of Canadians
has kept more than one Bay Street wolf at bay
and the Wheat Pool saved many farmers from sharks

The position I played was called back-catcher then
assuming every player on the field got to catch as well

The Co-op lumber yard sponsored our captainless team
and I got to put some lumber on the ball often but not far
Home runs are elitist anyway
everyone should have some chance to put a mitt on a hit

Minot

Audio Recordings, Remembering, Travel / tagged Insects / September 14, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Hotels and motels
once had fancy ashtrays
and their names proudly on them
hoping you might take them home
and remember and come back again

In Minot, North Dakota
the Holiday Inn had a fly swatter
with its name in plenty point font
to encourage you to leave it or take it
and remember a place so full of flies

I have wonderful memories of Minot
but every time I harken back … Swat

Recent Dream

Audio Recordings / September 13, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

In a recent dream
I walk past satan in snake suit

Scent of brimstone gives him away

I feel no urge to run nor stay
just move on thinking

I didn't know you could smell in dreams

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Anonymous on Rule BritannicaNovember 6, 2026
Amen to that.
Sandi Hebley on Ready for WinterOctober 26, 2026
😁😁
NEIL MEILI on Laughing With the DeadOctober 25, 2026
Thanks for the story Sandi, And bet he is and that I would have liked him Neil
Sandi Hebley on Okay Now – MostlyOctober 22, 2026
🤗
Sandi Hebley on Laughing With the DeadOctober 21, 2026
One of my fondest memories is that the last full sentence my dad spoke was to tell a visitor a…

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