by Alan Noakes
Yes the ‘if onlys’ seem to persist for ever
As hovering wraithlike used-up dreams.
‘if only ‘ this or that
On such and such a day
Had varied by an hour or an inch
Or something neglected had been done
Or that something done had been neglected
Then ‘perhaps’ the other might have been:
But then
‘perhaps’ and ‘if only’ are first cousins
Addicted to survival only in our minds.
Copyright ©:
Alan Noakes

A few random poems:
- Владимир Маяковский – Не предаваясь “большевистским бредням” (Красный перец)
- The way aboard by Preeth Nambiar
- Valhalla
- Pensive on Her Dead Gazing, I Heard the Mother of All. by Walt Whitman
- Федор Сологуб – Ландыши, ландыши, бедные цветы
- A Dream Of Venice
- The Men Who Wear My Clothes by Vernon Scannell
- In The Pass Of Killicranky by William Wordsworth
- Владимир Маяковский – Строители коммуны (РОСТА)
- The Arrival Of The Bee Box by Sylvia Plath
- Song Of Unquiet Spirit by Satish Verma
- Insomniac by Maya Angelou
- Archaic Torso Of Apollo by Rainer Maria Rilke
- Sketch—New Year’s Day, 1790 by Robert Burns
- The Couriers by Sylvia Plath
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh
Poems in English
- The Palace
- Storm
- Poor Fisherman
- Invitation
- A Banquet Song
- Written In A Volume Of The Comtesse De Noailles
- With A Copy Of Shakespeares Sonnets On Leaving College
- Vivien
- Virginibus Puerisque
- Translations Dante Inferno Canto Xxvi
- To England At The Outbreak Of The Balkan War
- Tithonus
- The Wanderer
- The Torture Of Cuauhtemoc
- The Sultans Palace
- The Rendezvous
- The Old Lowe House Staten Island
- The Nympholept
- The Need To Love
- The Hosts
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
Search engines:
Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)
Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.
Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees
Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.
Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.
Parallel Translations of Poetry
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works