#566 - if not ...

 

21.vii.21

566

2.201

if not

 

one thing then

open and shut

 

and over a rainbow for instance just

 

if I weren’t in these socks

it would be summer

 

if not this world

my lucky star

 

had I not swallowed whole

 

were I not white

(in another syntactic pattern)

 

if I were figment of the box

           simply painted on

           sung like the track

 

if I’d had other ancestors

more teeth and just the knack

 

should I speak the other words

 

if I drove a bigger rig

had made my pile or struck it

 

had I slept in that day

 

if only I’d listened

had the wind not changed

were we together then

            and tucked like a truth

            by the feet up hearth

 

if the old religion had carried me off

had we woken up in time

if I were bigger than

 

had we not put in the hours

 

you know that we needn’t have preached to the choir

             but a tune already

 

should have the bricks a pile

 

had we not grown to mourn time

 

were I in my right mind then

 

if not so far in the stars

on the spiral arm

at such a pace

this way that

(going through the motions)

 

had I had a good night’s rest

decided to stay home

 

were my parents each more circumspect

or either one

if only the meaning had been made clear

I see now that the signs were there

 

had I passed that test

known then what now

 

if it weren’t here

then somebody else

 

had we only persevered

would you not have come along (?)

 

if it were not me

but some shadowy character

 

had the world been wider

and a clock not ruled our lives

 

who do you think …

 

but we are where we are

and it is what it is

 

who do you think you are?