Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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A Neil a Day Poems

Wind Instruments on the Ranch

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nature, Ranch Life / tagged Music / April 1, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Xylophone of the
standing-slab fence
around the cattle shed

Flute of caragana pod

Harp of the ribs
of shelterbelt trees
armor rusting at their fee

Image courtesy of Free Images

Minutia in March

Audio Recordings, Nature / tagged Birds, Music, Spring / March 31, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Watching
the in and out
of a soft brown throat
on a bud-bare branch
microseconds from the song

A Carolina Wren welcoming the spring

1 Reply

A Bedtime Story With God In It

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry / tagged Creation, imagination, Poetry & Storytelling / March 30, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

After the mother father God
had coupled long in the joy
of telling their he-she she-he selves
stories of suns and moons
and planets and plants
and critters to scatter and fly

they said why don't we make one
that can tell tales too
and make them come true

and that my dear was you

Author’s mother reading to the family (author second from the left)

Father’s Poem

Audio Recordings, Family, Poems about Poetry, Relationships / tagged Care, Loss, Love, Nurturing / March 29, 2025 / 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

1 Reply

They Never Learned to Sing the Blues

Audio Recordings, Family / tagged Grief, Healing, Music / March 28, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Not being from the South
the early deaths of my father's mother and my mother's father
never made it into song

Not being from the South
the thirties blowing the farm away
and the salt scarring the young girls' legs
never made it into song

Not being from the South
the hymns in church never rocked the roof
No-one heeard, though they felt the pain
that never made it into song

Not being from the South
they never got to sing their blues away

Spit-Valve Blues

Audio Recordings / tagged Blues, Grief, Mourning, Music / March 27, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

On a trumpet or trombone
there's a valve
to let the moisture out

In a high school band it's mostly spit
Playing the blues it might be tears

Location Counts

Audio Recordings / tagged Jazz, Music / March 26, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Picking on the Banjo

Audio Recordings, Remembering / tagged Envy, Jealousy, Music, Talent / March 25, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

When I pick on a banjo
it's like a bully pickin on you
for your lunch money

In high school I tortured a trumpet
hitting the high notes and low
with many a glancing blow

While Johnny's boy, damn his hide
could pick up any instrument

Didn't have to think or practice
or anything
the music just told him
where to put his fingers

Mossbank II

Audio Recordings / tagged Childhood, Learning, Music, Noise, Practice / March 24, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Valve trombone and trumpet
Ernie and me
poisoning the air with practice

Mossbank

Audio Recordings, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, String Too Short To Save / tagged Restaurant, Small Town / March 23, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Chinese Café
big – small – happy
three symbols for me

1 Reply

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Tom on Basketball in CanadaApril 18, 2025
Neil, as you may know we live about 15 miles from his former farm. The locals have installed a bronze…
Ken Christopher on Hockey Night in CanadaApril 17, 2025
Good one, it’s still goin on
Ken Christopher on ShitstormApril 4, 2025
My former comment had an error, should have read: Great poem Neil, has some slippery elements that mix it up…
Kenneth on Walden PondApril 3, 2025
Siblants interlapping with interference waves construct this delightful hologram of spring: well done my friend
Ken Christopher on Minutia in MarchApril 1, 2025
21 beats, 4 past hyku, (sp); perhaps a new form. Beautiful poem

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