Neil Meili

Zen Cowboy Poet & Freelance Philosopher

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Tag Archives: Experience

To Feel is to Understand

Audio Recordings, Poems about Poetry, Relationships / tagged Connection, Experience, Sharing, Story / January 2, 2026 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Don't show me
a ball of twine of your conclusions
without the threads that made it up

Is it heavy as the world
Atlas carried upon his back
or light as a child's bouncing toy

Show me the strings
of failure pain and joy

take me on your journey's track
that we may roll it forth and back

Earning the Knowing Nod

Audio Recordings, Relationships / tagged Community, Connections, Experience, Recognition / November 25, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

You have been to the same school
sat at the same desk with a tack on the seat
and a ruler
with a ruler rapping your knuckles raw

You have been equally
but differently broken and healed by love

You meet across a room or in a grocery or airplane aisle

They nod, you nod, you both smile

Memory Lane Jogging

Audio Recordings, Family, Nostalgia, Remembering / tagged Connections, Experience, Sharing, Story / August 5, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

There are things I remember I forgot
like the music of my father's swearing
when a heavy hammer had hit his thumb

And like the words that my mother said
when she called us all in to go to bed

There are others another layer down
that digging alone I would never find
that someone else has to bring to mind

So I listen to stories by family and friend
till strings pop up to pull with a knot at the end

1 Reply

Bone on Bone

Audio Recordings, Personal Growth / tagged Aging, Bravado, Experience, Healing, Injury, Masculinity, Pain, Therapy / February 22, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The achy side of middle age
Julia Alvarez - The Cemetery of Untold Stories

It is well though untrue to say
my knees got like this from kneeling
though might pray to have them bend again

At Robert Bly's men's gatherings
they pinned a ribbon where each wound
had come from trying to be men

I won't bore you with the many mine
nor gie the younger advice to ignore
as I would have ignored it in my youth
and when they learn put ribbons on
blue ones for pride and red for regret

Buddy Training

Audio Recordings / tagged Dogs, Experience, Learning, Pain / February 19, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Experience is a hard teacher.
She gives the test first, the lesson after - Anonymous

Training terriers would require a world without squirrels

Or if they would not teach by taunting
but give sharp lessons to cold noses
like porcupines are kind enough to do

1 Reply

In-Tuition

Audio Recordings, Personal Growth / tagged Experience, Intuition, Learning / January 2, 2025 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Life is kindergarten grade school and uni
You get to play and you have to pay

Life is also learning to listen
to tickles and hunches
and hints and voices beyond the sphere of ear

The cost of this is only in the not

1 Reply

Tastes of Childhood

Audio Recordings, Family, Farm, Nostalgia, Ranch Life, Remembering / tagged Aging, Christmas, Experience, imagination, Literature, Traditions / December 24, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

When I was two or three
and my mother read to me

When Alice fell down the rabbit hole
I fell down the rabbit hole
tumbling over and over in the air
the memory is still there

Ribbon candy and real candles on the tree

Christmas chocolates made at home
from a factory recipe someone
slipped to someone on a train

Taste buds still budding
tasting with my whole body

Slowly I've forgotten how
only love and fear can do it now

Lilac Time

Audio Recordings, Nostalgia, Personal Growth, Poems about Poetry / tagged Experience, Flowers, Memory, Scent / June 15, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

The nostrils of the young
though keen
receive but half a scent

How many years
til it be doubled by memory

As more words than one
are needed to make rhyme

1 Reply

Young Dragon

Audio Recordings, Haiku / tagged Experience, Learning / February 10, 2024 / by neil_2015_wordpress@neilmeili.com

Young dragon walks
in direction of his breath
surprised by burning feet

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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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