Best Ifs Poems
If a poet falls in love with you
you will live forever.
Atticus Finch - To kill a mockingbird.
In the midst of conundrums, of 'what ifs.'
I dislike the ocean,
its bitter saltiness, brings no joy.
Perched safely, upon the highest cliff,
watching waves surge upon the shore.
They are a constant reminder of
how you waved goodbye.
Each ripple carried you away - forever.
Lost in reflection,
sentimental memories remain eternal.
Recalling how the sun caressed your face,
mirroring your spirited smile -
like a lantern in my darkness.
Still unforgettable -
the joy in those soulful eyes -
each time you glanced at me.
Nonchalantly, I would follow you.
As we walked without a care -
you never seeming to tire.
In our youthful playground,
rusty see-saws and swings
still remember our laughter and tears -
that first sophomoric kiss
and I can still taste you.
When night would arrive,
there was no fear, hand in hand.
You were like a mystical pixie,
glowing in the enchantment of moonlight -
it would illuminate through your eyes.
We could have danced all night,
our souls ascending to the heavens.
But, I was afraid of new horizons,
because, I knew you would depart -
just like a shooting star.
Without thinking,
I broke your heart -
before you could heal mine.
I remain in the silence of 'what ifs.'
But, I smile, content -
knowing that once there was a time,
your heart and mine,
merged like day and night.
Simple Musing
4 July 2020
This is a fictional poem.
An example for the 'One who got away' contest.
As the new year approaches it feels like our country…our world
is teetering on the edge of a cliff
as we wonder what has happened to acceptance, to compassion,
to generosity and love…we are confronted with a lot of what ifs.
What if instead of fearing those we see as different…
we got to know them…personally?
We would find we have much in common….and they were never our enemy.
What if in our hearts we understand we are all branches of the same family tree?
then our arms would open willingly in acceptance…despite the differences we see?
What if we sat and walked and talked together…
shared our joy divided our sorrow and tears?
We would find when we truly listened to one another…there is nothing we need fear.
If understanding removed our fear there would be no-one to hate
and nothing to hate for
no prejudice, no need for bullets, no more bombs or war.
What if we could see everyone as beautiful…as our sister and our brother?
What if we finally understood how we complement each other..
What if we stopped looking at the differences…in our sex, who we love…
in the color of our skin?
Animosity, our prejudice and our hatred would stop
and love and compassion would begin.
What if we realized the way we’ve look at each other all these years
has been petty, narrow-minded and small
And what if we begin to understand our wonderful variety and diversity…
is what makes us beautiful after all.
Which leads to the bigger question:
What if we do nothing? What if we don’t change?
What if we let our hatred eventually push us over that cliff…
In the moments we are falling to our doom…
It will be too late to wonder how this happened
to late then…to ask ourselves what if.
Some days are diamonds, some days are diamonds
Hey wait! Somethings wrong, each man is an island
What's good for some
Some fall on their bum
For me, it's diamonds, no ifs, ands, or hyphens
© Jack Ellison 2015
(Hyphens? Well it sorta rhymes doesn't it!!!)
If all the ifs and buts were laid
end to end round the world, I have
been told by a knowledgeable
scientist, they would circumnavigate
at least once or twice or three times.
Uncertain this statement is but it goes
to show if anyone did know for
certain, would it matter.
Procrastination picks its wasteful
effect through our lives, steals
moments which would be decisive.
But what causes this uncertainty,
anxiety and being afraid to go for it.
If we only knew.
WHAT IFS
What if I was immortal?
What if I can’t be hurt?
What if I could live forever?
What if I can’t be caught?
What if I got the breath of life?
What if I can’t be touched?
But I’m human after all
One day I’ll sleep and wake no more.
What if I was the happiest man on the Planet?
What if I don’t get sad?
What if I’ve never witnessed the downs?
What if the ups is all I’ve always gone?
What if I’ve never got no problems?
What if living has always been perfect?
What if I’ve never had it tough?
But I’m human after all
So may my road be rough.
What if my father was the richest man on the planet?
What if I’ve never been broke?
What if I’ve never worked for jerk in my life?
What if it is in wealth I’ve always been soaked?
What if money no be problem?
What if it was in royalty I woke?
But I’m human after all
Hustle, work is all I got to do till I need introduction no more.
What if I was God?
What if the world was under my care?
What if I decide who to bless, so also who to curse?
What if I know who would live and also who would die?
What if I decide when the world starts and when it ends?
But I’m human after all
Thank God I can never be God.
Adeeko Victor Ayokunle
24/08/2016
The front of my building has bushes
But also unfortunate gluts
Of something invasive and ugly –
A mountain of cigarette butts.
I’ve never seen somebody toss one –
I doubt if my tongue could be held –
For such utter contempt for the garden
Is certainly unparalleled.
Though smokers must bide by restrictions,
On streets they may puff as they please;
So when time for a toss is upon them,
They answer to no referees.
You’d think they would be diplomatic,
Considerate, civil and kind;
But second-hand smoke and its dangers
Isn’t all that they’re leaving behind.
The next time I notice a smoker,
I’ll follow his trail as he struts,
And gently remind him that Nature
Has no room for his ifs, ands or butts!
Sitting here as what ifs cloud my mind,
What if you could turn back time?
Would you press rewind?
The thought boggles my mind.
Is there something you wish to change?
These thoughts, so strange.
Arguments you wish to erase,
sad times you wish to replace.
Friendships that didn't last.
What would you do?
Would you change the past?
I have loved and lost,
Things have happened with a terrible cost.
But so much good has also happened in the past.
Wonderful memories forever they will last.
The question arises again.
Would you change the past if you could?
My answer, honestly I don't think I would.
Yes, I have said and done things I regret,
Many things I wish to forget.
But life is a classroom,
My past is the lesson.
Moving forward is my profession.
Through the good and the bad,
These moments I've had.
I've learnt from my mistakes, I will not repeat.
My past shaped me into who I am I will not accept defeat.
Its okay to mess up,
what I say is true.
Every day is a new day,
doors open for you.
Learn from your past,
But don't let it confine you.
My mind is in constant torment.
You say you love me, and she's a friend.
You say there is nothing to worry about.
Why then, is my heart clouded with doubt?
Intrusive thoughts plague my inner being..
Every smile, every word uttered, I go on imaging..
I want to bury my turbulent mind in a deep coffin.
So, I do not have to, continually cry and think so often.
Why do I ask questions to add fuel to the “ammo?”
You answer all my questions but, do I really know?
You still come home and sleep in my bed.
Then why does my heart continue to feel “misled?”
When you leave; my heart grows empty.
The green monster starts in again, with unending ifs of agony.
I know it seems stupid but
I can't let you go
My mind says you won't come back
But my heart says
What if...
What if you come back
What if you still love me
What if this is all just a dream
God I wish this was a dream
But sadly it's not
Im forced to face the truth
The what ifs aren't real
You won't come back
You don't still love me
This is real fu***** life
I'm so stupid for still
Looking for you in crowds
Listening for your voice
Looking to see if you like any of the quotes I like
You never do
Because you've moved on
You don't care
Your looking for a new face in the crowd not mine
So why am I looking for yours
Why do I do this to myself
Why do I put these thoughts in my head
Why can't I help but think of the what ifs
Maybe because I'm stupid
Or maybe it's because I still love you and always will and I still have hope you do too.
If you turn out to be right, at the end,
and no one ever knows I held a pen
or wrote anything virtuous other than
my Christian name in scribble/cursive blend
on legal forms, thus failing to defend
my structure’s ink, then yes, it means you win.
It also means the moment all your kin
let leak the common tear you couldn’t lend,
no one will know you had a name to write,
a cause to live, or a daughter you failed.
But, if, as I suspect you think you might,
you turn out being wrong in having jailed
a poet with your lies, imagine the night
our daughter reads the sonnets then prevailed.
Certainly. There's lotsa stuff
that's no more.
Certainty, like death, is forever.
Change stops when you're dead.
Change does just that, keeps changing.
You can give up smoking
yet you can't give up changing.
Gave up smokin' fifty years ago.
Cigarettes, ash trays, things of my past.
There's something about ashes
everyone eventually ends up there.
Many of us make ashes of ourselves.
These Ifs surely can get ya.
And those Ands keep comin'.
But the Butts
no more for me.
Funny how this works.
Certainty, good riddance.
No Ifs Ands or Butts.
19 Lines Free Verse 93 Words October 2022
Pen illustration G. Gaul
The day they kidnapped you
Was the day I found myself lost.
I found myself mostly numb
In a frosted layer of my own tears --
My eyes now dried out from
Years of overuse.
I've never missed something this badly,
Even after losing my own dad.
Sadly this takes the cake.
I almost feel inhuman for feeling this way.
But isn't that what I am now since you fled?
The monster under my childhood's bed?
One of a total of eight -
One for every forsaken flame
That kept the fire of my childlike zeal burning -
And eight years of work still can't raise the flame from its slumber.
Forgive me
In the chill of loneliness' cavern
I've forgotten the fondness of a smiling heart,
Or the levity of laughter's luxury.
I have lost the grail of passion,
And a passion for people.
People --
Love
People laugh
People listen
People link arm to arm
And lean closer
Eye to eye
Bonded by the light transmitted between them.
I am not people.
I am not persons.
I am but deserted versions of
burdens long forsaken,
behind the curtains of sermons sung
and versus not forgotten,
yet buried under the misery of betrayal's semblance
Remember
Meekness
Patience
Temperance
Gentleness -
These are healing balms
From the palms of Gilead
In symbolic remembrance
Of the one whose palms hold the bonds of light
Which people transmit -
Who submitted His will
And became Grace itself.
These are sermons sung
And versus not forgotten,
And my shaking soul
Left lifting its melodies
In search of the harmony that will
Someday heal its scars.
I am the lamb
written into each palm.
I am the woman
who draws from His healing balm.
I am the human
whose imperfections only grace can heal
into sacred psalms of eternal calm.
I am
the lamb of
I am -
The only way
the only truth
the only life
the only one.
“But, If,
we are in His fold
and are called his friends,
Christ’s’ word to us is this:
don’t be afraid;
You are worth more.”
But. LORD, how do I know
If you find me worthy
But, Lord will you fill
Because I am thirsty
If…if, LORD, it is so
that I am loved
despite my feeling low
show me from above
You, LORD, are a treasure
stored away for someday;
but, LORD, I have treasures
placed in storage away
There’s the old dinner bell
That rang for farm noon meals
And dolls and my tricycle
But, they tug deep – I feel!
If they are all are gone
Will I be less? But, what if
I die and they are there
Will they be a gift?
But, LORD, you know my heart,
more precious than my things
is the treasure I have in your fold;
You LORD, my everything
-Evelyn Pearl Anderson
This slippery slope, owning 5 years
It claims my thoughts,
Splits my heart,
And fraction’s loyalty
Bleeding dry
Yet wet with tears
I dream of you
And my what ifs
Always.
Upon that night, you saved, you grew
I saw you hero
Indent my spirit
And commandeer.
Bleeding dry
Yet wet with tears
I think of you
And my what ifs
Always.
You gift and play, upon request
Yet look deeply
Of free will,
Reflected, shinning
Bleeding dry
Yet wet with tears
I feel of you
And my what ifs
Always.
I Want to live this world amazingly
But the habit of overthinking
Has been making things messy
The what ifs are being overpowered
The big childhood dreams
Are being shattered
It's like living in a time loop
An unstoppable droll
To which I must reroute