Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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A Neil a Day Poems

November 7858 Golf

Audio Recordings, Flight, Pilots, Relationships / tagged Airplanes / July 19, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

You never forget your first

Beauty is nice, and grace
but if it is to lasting be

forgiveness is the key

Solo

Audio Recordings, Flight, Pilots / July 18, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

It was first solo cross country night
with all the fears of those new to flight

But the full winter moon lit a chessboard
of snow covered stubble and black fallow fields
and small creeks, winding east, from the mountains

All of the fears into the liquid moonlight melted
while flared nerves stayed open to the beauty

And the Cessna ran smooth at five thousand feet
I couldn't have been higher, at fifty

Wouldn’t It Be Nice

Audio Recordings, Flight, Pilots / July 17, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Wouldn't it be nice
if you went out with your instructor one morning
and the blue foothill sky was full of white puff ball clouds

And you smiled at each other
and began to play in and out of their magic
of shadows and light

And it felt as much lighter than air
as air is lighter than earth

And the hour took moments and forever
and the silence and awe followed you back
and he wouldn't even take your money for the ride

Now I know it's not legal to fly in clouds like that
so I'm not exactly saying that it happened
but wouldn't it be nice

How to Hook a Guy to Fly

Audio Recordings, Flight, Pilots / tagged Adventure, Learning / July 16, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Buy him a ride with a barnstormer before he's ten
and see how big he grows as the town grows small

Put First Flight $5.00 magazine ad in Hawaii
Let the pilot do the take off and hand over the controls
Let him fly Waikiki beach to Diamond Head and back

Climbout Sunsets

Audio Recordings, Flight, Pilots, Travel / tagged Aging, Memory, Wonder / July 15, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

John Gillespie Magee
slipped the surly bonds of earth
reached out and touched the face of God

Planes are bigger and faster now
I in my Aero Commander
commander of the air

Climbing at dusk have set the sun
on the lip of the world
and held it there

Have rode the Concorde
faster than the speed of sound
and faster than the earth goes round
that can lift it up where it when down

And there are times I'd best the lark
to try to hold or yet turn back
baby's smiles and love's first spark

I think Magee, the reverence would see
as we all fight the dying of the light
and try to touch the Sistine finger
a little longer before night

Reverence

Audio Recordings, Nature / tagged Faith, Respect, Teaching / July 14, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The prairie wind blows
from where the sun goes

stays up all night
to preach the grass
how to bow to its return

The Car of Joy

Audio Recordings / tagged Acceptance, Death, Grief, Healing / July 13, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The car of joy
runs on wheels
of completed grief

Light Shining on Copper

Audio Recordings, Relationships / tagged Absence, Death, Friendship, Grief, Longing, Love / July 12, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I can mostly buy
the whole spiritual thing
that she is neither dead nor gone

or at a perfect time
and to a perfect place

But there is
this hole in a hug
where she used to fit

1 Reply

Bad Moon Rising

Audio Recordings, Relationships / tagged Death, Friendship, Grief, Loss, Sadness / July 11, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Coyote howls
past the moon

Anger, sorrow
Copper, where?

Written after the death of dear friend Copper Love, with thanks to her family for allowing us to share one of Copper’s paintings. To see more of Copper’s art click here

Copper’s Big Bend

Audio Recordings, Nature / tagged Art & Artists, Rivers / July 10, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Copper takes her easel
out of the back of a red Miata
sets it up and waits for the light

She runs her brush
back and forth across her palm
and strikes when the moment's right

Her take from the land no more theft
than a drink from the Rio Grande
who loves to have your lips upon it

Artist Copper Love, from Kerrville, one of the areas affected by the devastating July 4th floods.

Photo of Copper Love’s painting “Chimneys.” For more information about Copper’s art, click here

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Sandi Hebley on How Fallen AngelsAugust 17, 2025
Indeed!
Nancy Fierstien on Unremember ThatAugust 16, 2025
Gonna be inclined to share this one at my Poets' Tea reading tomorrow afternoon. Thanks, Neil!
Sandi Hebley on Memory Lane JoggingAugust 5, 2025
Lovely!
Sandi Hebley on Dad and Death at WarAugust 4, 2025
😢
Sandi Hebley on One for the AuntiesAugust 3, 2025
Wow!

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