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:
- Алишер Навои – Чаша, солнце отражая
- The Cap And Bells by William Butler Yeats
- Николай Карамзин – Из мелодрамы Петр Великий (Жил был в свете добрый царь)
- Lover’s Gifts XXII: I Shall Gladly Suffer by Rabindranath Tagore
- The Flowers poem – Aldous Huxley poems | Poetry Monster
- Fare Well by Walter de la Mare
- Иван Бунин – За рекой луга зазеленели
- Sonnet 127: In the old age black was not counted fair by William Shakespeare
- Омар Хайям – О, не растите дерево печали
- The Apple Trees at Olema by Robert Hass
- Unlike, For Example, The Sound Of A Riptooth Saw by Thomas Lux
- A Wasted Illness by Thomas Hardy
- Николай Языков – Ау
- Auntie’s Skirts by Robert Louis Stevenson
- Robert Burns: On Being Shewn A Beautiful Country Seat : Belonging to the same Laird [not quite so wise as Solomon].
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
- Two Or Three: A Recipe To Make A Cuckold poem – Alexander Pope
- The Riddle of the World poem – Alexander Pope
- The Rape of the Lock: Canto 5 poem – Alexander Pope
- The Rape of the Lock: Canto 4 poem – Alexander Pope
- The Rape of the Lock: Canto 3 poem – Alexander Pope
- The Rape of the Lock: Canto 2 poem – Alexander Pope
- The Rape of the Lock: Canto 1 poem – Alexander Pope
- The Rape of the Lock poem – Alexander Pope
- The Iliad: Book VI (excerpt) poem – Alexander Pope
- The Dying Christian to His Soul poem – Alexander Pope
- Summer poem – Alexander Pope
- Sound And Sense poem – Alexander Pope
- Solitude: An Ode poem – Alexander Pope
- Solitude poem – Alexander Pope
- On a certain Lady at Court poem – Alexander Pope
- Ode on Solitude poem – Alexander Pope
- Lines on Curll poem – Alexander Pope
- Impromptu, to Lady Winchelsea poem – Alexander Pope
- Imitations of Horace: The First Epistle of the Second Book poem – Alexander Pope
- From an Essay on Man poem – Alexander Pope
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