Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry, Relationships / tagged Art & Artists, Fame, Fans / December 17, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Bukowski and Purdy

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry / tagged Art & Artists / December 16, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

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

Dinner with Robert Bly

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry / tagged Art & Artists / December 15, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Bly orders oysters like Hafiz and Rumi
Richest food on the menu
Swallows them whole
Offers them to all who share his table

Building Roads with Alden

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry, Remembering / tagged Work / December 14, 2025 / 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

The Author, at age 18, drove for Ramsey and Bird paving highways in Southern Saskatchewan. Silver badges were Chauffeur’s Licenses required for professional drivers

Alden Nowlan’s Beard

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry / December 13, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The beard of Alden Nowlan
is a Maritimes beard

A Nova Scotia beard
and a New Brunswick Beard

A beard wind-thinned
and pain gurled

With a beard like that
best not sleep on the rocky ground

Well before morn it would grow into
what it grew out of

Oh to Neruda

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry, Relationships / tagged Chile, Love, Patriotism, sensuality / December 12, 2025 / 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
and 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 you have received the treasures
that must always rise up
from their endless depths
to meet such a touch

Missing Leonard

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry / tagged Grief / December 11, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Leonard Cohen is gone
He doesn't call, he doesn't write

So huddle with me now
fellow worshipers and weepers

Huddle with me now
round the poem and the song
and listen for the breadcrumbs
and the hint of old perfume

that speak of other ways to God
that through the holes
in Jesus and the goddess

For Irving Layton

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry / tagged Art & Artists, Creativity, Expression, Identity, Music / December 10, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

For Irving Layton and his rhythmic authority

Canada is a country now
said Tom Thomson and The Group of Seven
and we don't have to paint like England

Layton's poetry says the same
although with fewer rocks and trees
and been known to swear at times
as part of the morning wake up call

Leonard Cohen learned at his knee
and we now can sing our Hallelujah

The Elephant Room Remembers

Audio Recordings / tagged Jazz, Music / December 9, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Jazz is a rumble of river rocks
rolling their neighbors smooth

Layer upon
layer of music and smoke
filling porous limestone pores
built Austin icon night by night

Scrape some off with a swizzle stick
and use it in that tequila martini

Call me
in the morning tell me about your dreams

Tony Campisi Plays Jazz at The Elephant Room

Audio Recordings / tagged Emotion, Music / December 8, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Tony Campisi plays Jazz
on an old tenor sax
notes you can't play on a new

Brass as rich as stone walls
in an old world church
soaked in a thousand years
of Latin mass

Tony Campisi plays Jazz
and somebody's cryin, somebody's dyin,
somebody's fallin in love - right now

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Anonymous on CirclesJanuary 18, 2026
Both Gloria and I were touched by your poem. Congrats. Tom and Gloria
LeoraLawrence Porter on Sacred DanceJanuary 18, 2026
Thank you, from an unknowing dancing healer! as for my liking… While I greatly, greatly appreciate your clarity of voice…
barbara joy on MessagesJanuary 16, 2026
profound
Eda Lishman on For the PoetryJanuary 7, 2026
Neil: what a daily gentlre reminder ...this broight me many memories of walking out into the open prairie searching for…
NEIL MEILI on Grocery Shopping in AustinDecember 13, 2025
Thanks Pamela, Love to see some of your haiku and you and Pamela in the new year. All blessings, Neil…

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