Poems about Poetry – Page 2 – Neil Meili

Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Category: Poems about Poetry

Exemplum Trahit – Example Draws

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry, Remembering / tagged Notre Dame, School / December 1, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

At Notre Dame in grade ten
the coach taught English too

No course outline to guide
and no homework for us or him

Cy would but bow
his blonde Adonis head
into an ancient book of verse

and read it with such love
we had no choice but to follow him in

In loving memory of Cy (Pope) MacDonald

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Shadows as Shade

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry, Relationships / November 22, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I am half sick of shadows
said the Lady of Shalott
though sealed her fate and lost her lot
when she looked full on Lancelot

When she looked full on Lancelot
and drifted dead to Camelot

Call them shadows call them shade
I have not that call yet made

So shelter yet in half-truth lies
to keep full light from out my eyes

In fear to share the Lady’s lot
when she looked full on Lancelot

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The Jester Honored

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry, Relationships / tagged Truth / November 10, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Joining the rest of Austin in celebrating our friend Thom today.

Only the jester dares
to tell the truth to the king
to hold the blade as a mirror
and thrust to the heart of the thing

And yet he has learned to retreat
as fast as a smile might fade
sit with his back to the stone
and polish the blade

Only the jester dares
to tell the truth to the king
to hold the blade as a mirror
and thrust to the heart of the thing

And yet he has learned to retreat
as fast as a smile might fade
sit with his back to the stone
and polish the blade

1 Reply

Oh to Neruda

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry, Relationships / October 22, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Oh Pablo you rise up
from a land, long as a woman’s back

And you have loved your land
as you would love a woman
as you have loved women as you loved
your land

Every rock and shoal of their coastlines
every mood of their tides

You have caressed them
with your mind and your heart
and your hands

And have received the treasures
that must always rise up
from their endless depths
to meet such a touch

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Not in Kansas Anymore

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nature, Personal Growth, Poems about Poetry, Ranch Life, Travel / October 17, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Bill grew up
in soft-furred hills and sea-flat plains
Might as well been me
in the south parts of Saskatchewan

Water rare as pearls
set us both on a lifetime seeking

Tin-dipper thirst
and big dipper quenching — Photo of dirt road on the old Saskatchewan ranch

Poet William Stafford born in Hutchingson, Kansas

Thanksgiving Poem: How To

Audio Recordings, Nature, Poems about Poetry / tagged Autumn, Gratitude, Thanksgiving, Writing / October 14, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Don’t write right away, but soon
Watch the leaves and the light fully
Connect – allow – relax – delight
Too quick is a tourist in a selfie
Taj Mahal untended over left shoulder
Wait too long and the phone will ring

Write a few hundred poems before – good and bad
so fear of the water doesn’t keep you on shore
And how about a title throwing two shadows
(as Mary Oliver encourages)
an easy one here with movement and the season

Do not say leaves look toward the sun, an object
but towards the rising of the sun, an event
and more evocative of motion

Note the angle of the sun
so low on the horizon that is shines upwards
into the twisting, twirling, falling leaves
as they lift at times in slightly gusting breeze

If pirouetting is what you see, bring the ballet in

And gratitude, of course, and on what day

Third in the series of five Thanksgiving poems from Leaflet: a poem progression. Written in Austin Texas, Thanksgiving 2014, re-celebrated, Canadian Thanksgiving 2020

Coyote Eyes

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry, Relationships / tagged Dogs / October 8, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

It is Austin
so a poet is running for mayor

We stop by a backyard party
in our neighborhood to meet
greet and hopefully support her

It is Austin
so there is an eight piece band
The Bob Katz and they’re very good

A dog with coyote eyes
comes up and wants to be my friend
so I make up
a Coyote Eyes, Coyote Eyes song
and sing it to her while the band
lights up Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire

And she looks up at me with those coyote eyes
and we are very much in love
But I am late for a poetry reading
at the English Café and have to leave
so she goes and sits by another man
She is looking up at him with those coyote eyes
I think she is trying to tell him
about the song

Thanks to veera Batlu for sharing their work on Unsplash.

1 Reply

Do You See What I See

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry, Relationships / October 6, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The coyote doesn’t howl at the moon
he howls to the other coyotes
to remind them to look up

Fall Haiku #12

Audio Recordings, Haiku, Nature, Poems about Poetry / tagged Autumn / September 18, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Leaf by golden leaf
metaphor by metaphor
softly falls the fall

Photo by Humphrey Muleba on Unsplash

Limits of Poetry

Audio Recordings, Environment, Haiku, News, Poems about Poetry / September 14, 2020 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Orange doesn't rhyme
smoke smudges sunsets in the West
fake face in the East

Image by skeeze from Pixabay

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