Flowers for Love
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
not every woman loves the same flower
nor wants the same flower from her love
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jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
Flowers for Forgiveness
how could it be that we let our love fall
when there were times in our lives that we had it all
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jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
Oceans Apart
A woman’s heart is a deep ocean of secrets.
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across the ocean, you are so far away
I want to wake with you, to the sound of the waves
crashing white on each brand new day
life is what happens, when you’re making plans
and all that you need is right there in your hands
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jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
I used a Panasonic Lumix for these shots
it’s a great pocket / purse camera
get yourself free
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you reach the end of day
just wishing you could fly away
from people, places and possessions
but as happens with all commitments
you can find yourself caught in such a trap
you get so used to it you can’t find your way back
just assert yourself and hope they won’t all desert you
you know when you are not yourself every day just hurts
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jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
Everybody Hurts Sometimes
Every now and then even a strong man cries.
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May I walk happily, and may it be beautiful before me.
May it be beautiful behind me, happy and and beautiful below.
May it be beautiful above me and may beauty be all around my heart.
In beauty I cry and wonder, and in beauty there is both my sadness and joy.
Navajo Prayer.
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jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
Sea of Sorrow
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Drinking from the waters of sorrow
sustains a different kind of life.
This sea is hidden from the rest of the world.
Tears drip of my chin and fall
into an endless flow of liquid love.
This silent sea sparkles with beauty.
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from Todd Nigro
jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
neither dead nor really alive
Death is not the greatest loss in Life.
Watching my Dad dying in a nursing home bed made me realise something today. That modern death is seldom like a light switch. My Dad wasn’t the vital, elderly gentleman he was just a week ago, and then suddenly dead. For my Dad death is coming slowly. He is dying one little piece at a time.
The part of his mind that remains must know this, and I believe that is why he is sometimes very distressed. He keeps calling to my late mother and his dead sister, (my late aunt), and I have never heard him do that before.
I don’t believe that he is in much physical pain, because the doctors haven’t yet given him morphine. However, physically, mentally, and spiritually my Dad is suffering greatly. He has no dignity at all.
A part of me hopes it will be over soon, and that feeling of wanting my father to pass on quickly gives me much pause for thought. I’m not certain if wanting my father to die swiftly and with dignity makes me evil, or caring.
I have no answers or wider lessons to impart on the modern process of dying.
However, I have learned something important about how to live.
Live life to the full, make your decisions and stick by them, never compromise, and never settle for second best or the easy option.
Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live. ~ Norman Cousins
Some said that I was a very all-or-nothing guy before, and that I would not live in shades of grey. All I know is that those people ain’t seen nothing yet.
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jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
death changes everything
From Brutality Beauty May Arise.
It’s strange for me to realise that deception, deceit, and dishonesty have been swept from what remains of my life. It happened in an heartbeat.
Yesterday I visited my dying father in his nursing home. I have never seen the face of a living person look so horrific. All I can compare him to are the bare survivors of a Nazi Death Camp. There was nothing nice, caring, or spiritual about the instant experience. There was the bare husk of a man in an hospital bed, and nothing passed between us. I don’t even know if he was aware of my existence.
I tried to read from the poetry of Rudyard Kipling, just to let him hear my voice. I am uncertain if I am proud or ashamed that I was too choked to read more than a verse or two.
What happened to me? A lifetime was swept away. All the compromises, illusions, disillusionments, self-deceptions, and self-loathing were picked up and turned to a fine dust that was blown away in a dying man’s hoarse breath. What was left to me was the very essence of a man, and I am that man.
This was not what I expected or wanted.
I will be there when my father dies, maybe in a day or so, or maybe between 0100 and 0200 on Wednesday. As he passes I will celebrate his life and his dying. Unless something passes between us in his last moments, I will not understand the change in me.
How can a man ever understand the fire, the hammer, and the anvil from which the core of steel in his soul has emerged?
Please understand that I am happy it took the horrific face of my dying father to reveal the true man within my soul.
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jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
wistful musings
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it’s so quiet in the old ruins
of my mind silent in synchronicity
with cadenced surf counting serendipitous
judgements while each step I take and every breath
whispers as the cold sea measures love’s lost soulfulness
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words and pictures by jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
little star
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solitary hopefulness in the midst of blackness
do not condemn me to Stygian darkness
lonely abandonment in unhappiness
shine over me with watchfulness
care for me in mindfulness
lift my hopelessness
my shining star
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words and pictures by jack collier
jackcollier7@talktalk.net
