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:
- Аля Кудряшева – Театр-весна
- There Were Dry Red Days by Sharmagne Leland-St. John
- Ольга Берггольц – Не может быть, чтоб жили мы напрасно
- Низами Гянджеви – Я бросил молодость в пожар моей любви
- To A Young Lady. On Her Recovery From A Fever by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- Владимир Маяковский – Смотри, крестьянин (РОСТА №463)
- Как хочу я в День влюбленных
- No LOVE by venkatesh.valusa
- Robert Burns: My Heart’s In The Highlands:
- Lines On The Expected Invasion, 1803 by William Wordsworth
- Despair
- The Well Of Love by Walter William Safar
- Олег Сердобольский – Угадай, в какой руке
- Crazy Jane Reproved by William Butler Yeats
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Когда вдали от суеты всемирной
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
- Phantasm
- Long I waited in vain
- was_then.html
- phantasm.html
- long_i_waited_in_vain.html
- Wind on the Hill by A. A. Milne
- Us Two by AA Milne
- twinkletoes.html
- The Morning Walk
- the_kings_breakfast.html
- the_dormouse_and_the_doctor.html
- the_christening.html
- Teddy Bear
- rice_pudding.html
- politeness.html
- Missing
- market_square.html
- lines_and_squares.html
- if_i_were_king.html
- hoppity.html
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