Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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A Neil a Day Poems

New Hay

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nature, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Harvest, Scent / August 18, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The scent of hay
thrown upward in the cutting

Too rich and heavy to remain aloft
falls back to lie among its fallen friends

Walk shuffling feet through it
and it lifts again in clouds to nostrils

Breathed in sweet particles remain
I do believe ... there's some there yet

Ode to the Farmer

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Accidents, Danger, Death, Harvest, Nourishment, Work / August 17, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

No one will be surprised by the report
that farming is a very dangerous sport

What flappig empty-fingered gloves
point back to momentary lapses
What limbs with what power
have been taken off
by power take-offs

What tendons snapped like glass
and bones cut clean as grass
by unthinking mowers

And what of those neighbours
dead and true
who for a minute forgetting
what they knew
through red machines
combined with their grain

All these have earned a dusty tear
and many a "who's next" fear

Year after year after year

And yet deep in the soils of time
the seeds of goodness
are growing
while the world
turns in slow seasons

And he will be ready
when at last they declare
a true war on poverty
and are willing to bomb
with wheat

The Elevator

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life / August 16, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Seed filled erection
proud on the prairie
when the west was young

The Girl From Away

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Relationships / tagged Attraction, Love, sensuality, Youth / August 15, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I was sixteen, it was summer

Hauling wheat to town in the 3-ton Chevy
A quart of store-bought buttermilk
on the seat for the trip back to the ranch

There was a girl, my age and beautiful
visiting in the last house on the left

Sometimes she would be
on the street or in the yard

The truck was new and powerful
I was farm boy healthy, strong

We were hitting on all cylinders

It was warm, the window was open
I was in love, the butter milk was cold

Waterfront

Audio Recordings / tagged Birds, Cost, Housing, Location / August 14, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

In the city you pay
a million for
al lot along the shore

Where the alkali flats
meet Wood River's lacks
of so much as a single tree
the mud hen builds for free

Holding Up the Line

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life / August 13, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Barista, barista, if only you knew
what I'd like to order from you

Barista, barista
please, if you please
cold coffee in a Mason jar
like Momma sent to the fields
at harvest and at haying time

That much sugar
and that much cream
and no one wiped the lip
when they passed it round

Barista, barista
there's nothing I see
on that long fancy menu for me

I guess
I just came in to smell the coffee

1 Reply

Coyote Eyes

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry / tagged Connection, Dogs, Music / August 12, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

It is Austin
so a poet is running for mayor

We stop by a backyard party
in our neighbourhood 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 thosse 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

It Is Enough

Audio Recordings, Family, Nature, Poems about Poetry / tagged Aging, Gratitude, Struggle / August 11, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

It is enough
that the baby smiles
even if it's only gas

It is enough
to know that God exists
though it take a lifetime
and a minute more

It is enough
that the dog loves you
at the end of a day filled
with cats

It is enough
that the rainbow
can arch your back
straight again

It is enough
to watch a sunset

It is enough
that leaves fall like butterflies

It is enough
that joy exists, even when
others have it all

It is enoughgh
that the other knee feels
fine

It is enough
that in dreams you can
still fly

It is enough
that poetry is in the bible
too

It is enough
that gifts come
in the size of gratitude

Reincarnation by Cloud

Audio Recordings / August 10, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Does the rain falling on us now
remember the palmed oasis
the emerald lake of the Rockies
the laughing over small stones

Hand in hand we stand
faces upward, wet with hope

Photo credit Joyce (Joy) Silzer. Prairie sky just outside Mossbank, Saskatchewan, one of the author’s home towns.

1 Reply

Reincarnation by Loon

Audio Recordings, Remembering / tagged Birds / August 9, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Now there's a sound
you could take anywhere
and remember
when you returned

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Sandi Hebley on Holding Up the LineAugust 13, 2026
Awwww!
Joy on Reincarnation by CloudAugust 10, 2026
Watching clouds move across the sky, The way they did years ago, Growing up on the prarie, watching sky and…
Sandi Hebley on Red-Winged BlackbirdAugust 3, 2026
This is a good one!
Sandi Hebley on The Man in the Desert RemembersJuly 21, 2026
Wow!
JM on The Man in the Desert RemembersJuly 21, 2026
This one really hit home Thank you

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String Too Short To Save
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