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:
- Вера Павлова – Нежность больше не делится
- A Cross-Road Epitaph poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Old Land And The Young Land poem – Alfred Austin
- Robert Burns: Poortith Cauld And Restless Love:
- Letter In November by Sylvia Plath
- Федор Сологуб – Лепестками завялыми
- Яков Полонский – После праздника
- Ольга Седакова – Сказка
- In A Garden by Sara Teasdale
- Inscription for the Headstone of Fergusson the Poet by Robert Burns
- The Boy by William Henry Davies
- Untitled IV by Yunus Emre
- Untitled XIX by Yunus Emre
- As Adam, Early in the Morning. by Walt Whitman
- Anthem For Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen
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
- Gravity Suspended
- From Death
- Forfeiture
- For My Mother
- Fly Fly Butterfly
- Even The Rain
- Destiny Far Away
- Conversation
- Calling All Angels
- At The Locks Of The Void
- Anthem
- All In A Word
- A Teenage Pregnancy
- A Painting Morning
- A Child Of War
- Your Dream
- Ars Poetica
- The Vision Of Cassandra
- The Sacrifice Of Iphigenia
- The Lament Of The Old Nurse
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