Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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A Neil a Day Poems

Grandma Brander

Audio Recordings, Family, Relationships, Remembering / tagged Childhood, Games / June 21, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Mother would sometimes stop our play and send us to visit her mother in that little white house

She may have had grand stories to tell, about her childhood in England and Ontario and her brother lost at sea, and our grandfather whom we'd never met

What was he like - were we like him - Would we want to be

It was a leap we never took, and spent afternoons in leaps more comfortable to us all - small colourd marbles over small coloured marbles in the inscrutability of Chinese Checkers

Small Town Grade Seven

Audio Recordings, Relationships, Remembering / tagged Childhood, Death, Heartbreak, Small Town / June 20, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

In a town of six or seven hundred
you get a cross section of the country

One classmate's father's suicide
with shotgun splattered walls

One boy my age, drowned
in an upturned truck in a muddy ditch

One with leukaemia, white as the snow

One redhead, Leslie French, as beautiful and mysterious as the language

One blonde, Shirley Long, to long for

She's only interested in grade 9 boys

One bruised heart

Not yet hard enough to be broken

Mossbank Mostly Moss

Audio Recordings, Family, Remembering / tagged Small Town / June 19, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Mossbank, Saskatchewan, circa 1955

Listening to Rain in Saskatchewan

Audio Recordings, Farm, Nature, Ranch Life, Travel / tagged Home, Hope, Nourishment / June 18, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

It had rained
and it was raining
and it was going to rain

He has seen and heard rain
in many countries of the world
including the rain in Spain

This was not that rain

This was the rain of childhood
the rain of a young farmer
praying with his first field of flax

This was the rain
of 4 a.m. with his father
who got up with the summer sun
whether the sun got up or not
and made sure that you did too

A different father than yesterday
with sweat-caked furrowed brow

This was rain to nourish
your skin and bones and soul
and you can still only hear it here

Bit of Wisdom

Audio Recordings, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Aging, Control, Rebellion, Small Town, Youth / June 17, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Old man still tight
on the reins of his years
- Ted Kooser

In youth
he got the bit in his teeth a few times

Still trying to forget what the neighbors won't

Always rides with a tight rein now
chafing hard on a dentured mouth

No Leaners

Audio Recordings, Farm, Ranch Life / tagged Games, Humor / June 16, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The man could throw a horseshoe

If you planted a roan upside down
he coulda shod her at twenty paces

Image by Beverly Buckley from Pixabay

Flowers For My Father

Audio Recordings, Family, Relationships / tagged Adoration, Regret / June 15, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

As awed as I was
by so much of my father

As many questions as I didn't ask

The biggest waiting
for some moment on a cloud

is "Tell me of your awe"

Don’t Pet the Piranhas

Audio Recordings, Family, Nature / tagged Animals, Captivity, Freedom, Protection, Restrictions / June 14, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Don't Pet the Piranhas
and other things to learn about zoos

The tiger did not get his stripes
from a suntan through these bars

The giraffes did not get those necks
from trying to see Africa from here

Your parents meant well and so do the keepers

This is not why the hyena is laughing

To the Zoo

Audio Recordings, Family, Relationships, Travel / tagged Adventure, Connection, Gratitude, Joy / June 13, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

I went to the Zoo with you
I went to the Zoo with you

There were lions and tigers and elephants
and cotton candy too

but I went to the Zoo with you
with you, with you, with you

Fairies in the Garden

Audio Recordings / tagged Humor, Magic / June 12, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Fairies in the garden
when the day is new

Washing their undies
in the dew

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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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