Family – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Family

Roses in My Rear View Mirror

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Relationships, Remembering / tagged memories / June 8, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

(and a few bluebonnets too)

There's a family always laughing
There are girls, and they're all smiling

There's a collie dog a roaming
chasing gophers down their holes

There's a ranch with grass all greening
fifteen minutes after rain

Maybe you can go home again

The Albums

Audio Recordings, Family, Nostalgia, Relationships, Remembering / tagged Aging, Connection, Pictures / June 6, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Mother's shrinkage was marked by domicile

House, apartment, retirement and nursing home
shedding at each move, furniture, china and art
except for, and never, the old photo albums
heavy in padded leather brown and green

Each visit when conversation stuttered to a stall
(Religion all but Baptist drowned and what use is weather without crops)
out would come the albums
and in we all would dive
for pennies bright and shiny
at the bottom of the pool

Here's one from 1958
How young the queen looked then

1 Reply

Cousins Round the Campfire

Audio Recordings, Family, Relationships / June 5, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Green twig pals by blaze
one will bend up one bend down
one will tell the town

Author age 12 with cousins Wayne and Lyle

Cousin Wayne

Audio Recordings, Family, Remembering / tagged Alcohol, Death, Innocence, Regret / June 4, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

When Wayne was thirteen
he had the finest blondest hair
the finest features and the finest mind
of all the cousins round

A city boy and cooler about everything than all of us
until we took him hunting

When his first shot hit the rabbit
he ran and cried and held it til it died

At eighteen he quit school with A grades
a month before graduation to get a jump on a job
met a girl and bragged of achievement on first date

Over achievement it turned out to be
quick marriage, quick, two children, three

Army for security, liquor for the pain
it was twenty years before I saw him again

He was in a downstairs bar
sitting there as coarse and thick as adobe brick

I wanted to roll it all back
reach in for the lost fineness and yank it all inside out

And hold him like the rabbit when he cried
still innocent when it died

Crab Apple Love

Audio Recordings, Family, Relationships / tagged Humor, Imperfection, Love, sensuality / May 22, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

You'd be crabby too
if you'd been through what I've been through

Yes, you might be a little crabby too
if all your relatives looked down on you

Sweet Granny Smith with her stem in the air
pretending she's green as the unmown grass
has a worm hole or two I could tell you about

And there's no living with uncle Mac
since that damn computer came out

But enough about them, let's talk you and me
how I'm so much more than an ornamental tree

About how lovely I am, and inviting you in
your teeth in my flesh and your lips on my skin

So if you're looking for love that's true to the core
I'm telling you love, you'll be looking no more

If you're looking for love that's going to stick
I've got plenty of pectin to do that old trick

And we can be jammin' all night and all day
if you'll bring some sugar, and meet me half way

One More For Kenny

Audio Recordings, Family, Relationships / tagged Connection, Death, Grief, Loss, Separation / May 15, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

We were Siamese cousins
joined at the hip

So adept we never stepped
on each others toes

God the great and clumsy surgeon
has divided us

Wearing the right clothes
the scar doesn't show
but people sometimes wonder
why I walk in circles

Kenny and Me

Audio Recordings, Cowboy Poetry, Family, Ranch Life, Relationships / May 14, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

(or Ranching at Eighteen)

Together we were young
and strong and very bold
and together we could drink
more beer than we could hold

We could drive home late and fast
singing every Johnny Horton song
Then fall asleep for minutes
and still answer the morning gong

We would work it out in the hot hot sun
(so easy then did the poisons yield) As we sweated bales with pitch forks
and passed gas
in a thousand acre field

My Mayday Maypole Birthday

Audio Recordings, Family, Haiku, Relationships / tagged Celebrations, Joy, Legacy, Spring / May 1, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

My Mayday Maypole Birthday

May children dance
laughter wraps with ribbons
spring opens heart

1 Reply

You Can Go Home Again

Audio Recordings, Family / tagged Afterlife, Aging, Connection, Death, Dying, Guidance, Transition, Welcome / March 12, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

A Caution Against Too Much Church Too Soon

Audio Recordings, Family / tagged Religion / March 2, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Brother Wally at age three or four
sitting on the tracks as the train approaches
wanting to find out what it's like to be an angel

The last minute rescue
granting him some fame and slack
when he went back to being
the little devil he had been the day before

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Sandi Hebley on What the Hell VillanelleJune 10, 2026
Had to go look up “villanelle.” 😏
Sandi Hebley on The AlbumsJune 6, 2026
💕 I love our old albums!
Sandi Hebley on JudyJune 1, 2026
😢 Hugs!
Kimberly Heinrich on The Other WellMay 31, 2026
Neil: THANK YOU for this!! Love it!! You are the best!!!💕💕
Sandi Hebley on Timmy’s Down the WellMay 29, 2026
🤗 Love this!

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