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:
- I Won, You Lost by Philip Levine
- On The New Forcers Of Conscience Under The Long Parliament poem – John Milton poems
- Яков Полонский – Диссонанс
- Someday’s Here by Shel Silverstein
- Come, Here Is Adieu To The City by Robert Louis Stevenson
- A Reply To A Pessimist poem – Alfred Austin
- Омар Хайям – Что жизнь
- The Sun Has Long Been Set by William Wordsworth
- Sonnet 87: Farewell! Thou art too dear for my possessing by William Shakespeare
- Christmas Holidays by Thomas Hood
- Welcome To My World © by Shannen Wrass
- Verdad Innegable by Victoria Luisa Mora Paoli
- Tiger Drinking at Forest Pool by Ruth Padel
- The Dance At Darmstadt poem – Alfred Austin
- Hymn by Sidney Godolphin
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
- Sacrifice And Love
- Rule I By Eric Mottram Stop Writing Literature You Garrulous Indian
- Poetry And Politics
- Poem Stories
- Plato
- Peace Universal Good
- Paralipomemnon
- Our Refuge
- One Sweet White Light
- New Land
- Motionless Body
- Mother
- Minimalism And The Elm Choka
- Mark
- Love Flower
- Love
- Lord God Have Mercy On Me
- Libation
- Least In A List
- Interpret The Light
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