Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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A Neil a Day Poems

Buicks

Audio Recordings, Family, Haiku / tagged Cars / June 19, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Our father drove Buicks
we knew that we would succeed
the road had been paved

Fishing with Father

Audio Recordings, Family, Haiku, Relationships / June 18, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Fishing with father
you may catch his attention
deepest fish in the lake

Father’s Poem

Audio Recordings, Family, Poems about Poetry, Relationships / tagged Love / June 17, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

My father’s poems
did not come down to us on paper

He was eight years old when his mother died
his youngest brother not yet three

They say he adopted the care
of the sweet sad child
and told him a story each night

Night after night after night

New stories he made up each night

And he would gather him up in the story
and hold him there
until he slept

Not in Kansas Anymore

Audio Recordings, Farm, Poems about Poetry, Ranch Life / June 16, 2022 / 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

Poet William Stafford born in Hutchingson, Kansas

Poetry at Bergen

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry, Travel / June 15, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

If Austin is the Athens of America
Bergen is the Austin of Holland

Sunday afternoon
reading in seven languages

Feeling the difference

Harsh precision of the Dutch
If you could understand the language
you would understand the poem

Russian

The power of
a shot of cold vodka
and survival on the steppes

Afrikaans

Dutch rubbed smooth
by the soft hills of Africa

Latin

Still the mother of language
singing through her children

Spanish

Music of Lorca
moving your body as you listen

French

Dark musings of Rimbaud
a shrug in every verb

English

The fish does not see water
but there was food everywhere

Self Portrait with Leonard Cohen

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry / June 14, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Some people say it's empty but that doesn't mean it's light
- Leonard Cohen 'A Street'

All those poets all these years
in Canada and far-flung lands (and me in no way immune) standing in his shadow to measure theirs
and every selfie we still shoot
contains the Kirlian aura of his wraith

Building Roads with Alden

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry / June 13, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

If there comes a time when truck drivers read poetry, mine will be the poetry they'll read - Alden Nowlan

I'd like to think
if someone from the day shift
had left a book of Alden's on the seat
and I'd picked it up
while waiting for the spreader
Young tho I was and trucker proud
of the silver badges on my belt
and the black ribbon we were laying
he'd have had a hard time getting it back

Alden Nowlan: https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/alden-nowlan

Bukowski and Purdy

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry / June 12, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Bukowski in his coffin, dead as hell
reaching for one last beer
and almost making it - Allan Purdy

Purdy was not Canada's Bukowski
although he might have wished to be
You can't say that kind of shit
and "I'm sorry" at the same time

Al Purdy https://canpoetry.library.utoronto.ca/purdy/index.htm

Charles Bukowski https://bukowski.net

On Reading Alan Dugan

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry / tagged Aging / June 11, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Reading Alan Dugan, and not, and again
and not again, and again, and then again

The curmudgeon-colored misanthrope
deepening his claw-set each time

Not sure if he is getting better
or I am getting worse

On Reading Dark Poetry

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry / June 10, 2022 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

It was thought
and in some places still might be

that portends can
be gleaned by the study of entrails

But I think that was of chickens

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