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Z  Dec 2012
what if..
Z Dec 2012
when i was little,
i used to read those books,
you know,
by shel silverstein?
where the sidewalk ends,
and
a light in the attic?
there was a poem in one,
and it went like this:
"Last night, while I lay thinking here,
some Whatifs crawled inside my ear
and pranced and partied all night long
and sang their same old Whatif song:
Whatif I'm dumb in school?
Whatif they've closed the swimming pool?
Whatif I get beat up?
Whatif there's poison in my cup?
Whatif I start to cry?
Whatif I get sick and die?
Whatif I flunk that test?
Whatif green hair grows on my chest?
Whatif nobody likes me?
Whatif a bolt of lightning strikes me?
Whatif I don't grow taller?
Whatif my head starts getting smaller?
Whatif the fish won't bite?
Whatif the wind tears up my kite?
Whatif they start a war?
Whatif my parents get divorced?
Whatif the bus is late?
Whatif my teeth don't grow in straight?
Whatif I tear my pants?
Whatif I never learn to dance?
Everything seems well, and then
the nighttime Whatifs strike again!"
and that poem sticks in my head,
a lot.
because,
really,
"whatif's" control my every thought.
my "whatif's" keep me,
all in check,
when they breathe their "whatif's",
on my neck.
they keep me waiting,
watching,
and wary,
"whatif" life, wasn't so scary?
"whatif" i could live,
and not be so afraid,
"whatif" i was sure,
of the choices i've made?
i guess i'll find out soon,
but "whatif" i don't.
to be honest i'm scared,
that maybe i won't.
just rambling, kind of. that poem gets stuck in my head all the time, just like a lot of other Shel Silverstein poems. so. yep!
Shel Silverstein  Jun 2009
Whatif
Last night, while I lay thinking here,
some Whatifs crawled inside my ear
and pranced and partied all night long
and sang their same old Whatif song:
Whatif I'm dumb in school?
Whatif they've closed the swimming pool?
Whatif I get beat up?
Whatif there's poison in my cup?
Whatif I start to cry?
Whatif I get sick and die?
Whatif I flunk that test?
Whatif green hair grows on my chest?
Whatif nobody likes me?
Whatif a bolt of lightning strikes me?
Whatif I don't grow talle?
Whatif my head starts getting smaller?
Whatif the fish won't bite?
Whatif the wind tears up my kite?
Whatif they start a war?
Whatif my parents get divorced?
Whatif the bus is late?
Whatif my teeth don't grow in straight?
Whatif I tear my pants?
Whatif I never learn to dance?
Everything seems well, and then
the nighttime Whatifs strike again!
-D  Sep 2012
a glimpse.
-D Sep 2012
"good morning," you said,
as you walked up trottrottrot to my door,
opened the lock with your smile
& let yourself in:

"I promise not to stay,
but I'd like to at least take a glimpse
of the whatif sort of game we play."

& as I unfurled my joy at your arrival
I closed my eyes to picture
just what our whatifs and couldwes would look like:

there would be music,
sweet music,
& your voice would match with my words--
a tenor chorus in cummings' poetry,
a breath of anxious hearts' goodbyes.

for each&everytime; we are draw near to the same place,
we hold our hands up & against each other's,
& we look into each other's eyes
but our fingers never, never, never
interlace.

whatif, whatif, whatif--
so exhausting is this thought,
that I will set it free here in these words,
& I will let you be there with your wideawakeeyes
& your heart that runs its course in the other direction
from where I stand tonight.
-D Oct 2012
there was a morning that awoke
to dreams of you
holding coffee mugs full of your words that you could never speak.
[for my hands were full&clasped;
with the covers of another lover,
but you held the chalice closer
so as to keep it warm until
I emerged from my slumber]

& there is this evening that feels
glimmers&flashes; of a new awakening:
awe & wonder & immaculate passion, too.
[the covers are beginning to recede
as I emerge to the brand new season
& reach up for the mug that awakens
& renews
& answers my questions
in the language that you&I; have always spoken
in our secret places]

come back to me, I plead,
even though I am the one who left,
& it has not been easy…


but I would like to unwrap the whispering whatifs
that have comforted me timeaftertime
since the day we first met:
whatif
our fingers intertwined &
whatif
our embraces became eclipses &
whatif
our paths intersected
& stayed that way on a journey for some time?
[just think of all the things we could see
& feel
& write
& listen
together]

destinations, destinations;
we’d be walking in crooked lines
composed of our mistakes, unpredictable emotions,
but our honesty & forgiveness would correct our straying.
[& we’d finally be moving forward
somewhere,
which is better than backward
just about anywhere
--especially to all the places we’ve been:
heartbreak &
harm &
holding on to who we’ve lost--.]

so you shut her door,
& I’ll burn his bridge
& don’t be afraid to sing Hallelujahs as I
fade to slumber on your porch in the rain,
for just because the seasons will change,
doesn’t mean that I won’t be standing here
to cover you in the midst of autumn leaves
& fears of Falling.
Ken Pepiton Oct 2018
I put my hand in the hand of the man from galilee

Or I thought I did, I imagined he would walk with me
and talk with me

and help me fill the darkness behind my eyes,
which i think may have been blind, at one time,

I have memories like that guy, Gold-something
color maybe, Goldfarv? Bloom. Right, my augmentatious savant
looked it up and I sorted what I recalled

Google The Global Brain, where he named a kind of
category of knowability. Memes, he called them.

And I thought, memes mean something more,
not Dawkins's, nor Bloom's, but
these, heteromemes bubbling out my belly button,
look real close.

Fractally featureless by the time a clock could have been imagined,

the point of the story was made, and there is no end in sight.

Pop. Another apocalypse bubble eclipsed by mortality. Whaddyaknow?

What remains when a bubble pops at a positron level,
after the charge is touched and
the tensionpowerloss collapses the bubble?

You should think you know atoms work, like
not a cloud of super positioning, elect-
tric-magi-tech, touch screen at the quantum accounting point,
not that, but
a bubble, powered, one way or another, with a single charge,
Go, that's it.
What an electron does. It goes,
as soon as any sense can be made of it,
oughtaouta hear
ping. No charge, no bubble, but next sure as...

Hell,
somethi' from nuthin must ahapt one time,
but ya'll take no heed, m'fallin angel droppin' in olfren, tricky hybridbast...

Noah was a tellin' Ham the truth found in wines that moved themselves
aright, slurry tongued, but pisstoff

The idea of somethin' goin' south in a family,
that started up again when
ever Noah started drinkin' old wine, sayin' sbetter'n...

Who told you I was naked?

-- aye, ye know, Noah was drunk,
No excuse, but you know.

Things were said, that maybe were forgotten, after a while,

But those father wounds a man imagines worst
are the one's his son's forgot.

The story being told is complicated. See,
the Bible is a lens,
not a map.

It got me much farther than this, should you ever
visit me.
No,
that's not in the stack,
that card's about as relevant as McLuhan's hair of the dog.

Somethin', ain't it?  All them three meter dishes shrunk down
to the size of a spoon, a teeny weeny spoon, a coke spoon,
like on Miami Vice, back when.

Satellite TV changed the desert, fer sher, but 4g, brohan,

that was the trick.
Future, on demand, where outhouses are still de rigueur.

Before you know it, country kids,
too poor for any but outlaw dreams,
can audit courses at MIT,
if somebody
shows him, it can be done, prove t' him
it works, faith can make things happen,
but
happening is sorta hard to nail down to one thing,
until the very last
Planc-sec.  Astrophysics is part of the metagame, fer sher.
But
there's some stuff that takes some patience,

everything that's old is only old, not rotten.

Olde time religion, at the oldfo'k dayroom,
where the clock runs the whole show.
It's another game show. Saint Bob Barker takes a bow,
and declares the worth of all your eyes behold,

If, if, if you are alucky winner and you arise when I call your name
to come on down
fall on your knees and declare the worth...

pure gamesmanships required here, golf whispers only,
worship, smuch more difficult to aim for than praise.
I agree.
Praise, appraisal, worthyness, worthship, prize,
how do you declare such a thing worthy,

A feeling? What's it worth? Depends. Safe? Priceless. Don't shout.

So we sell walls. We'll be rich and powerful wallbuilding,
citi-zen warriors fed and fattened by those we make
feel safe.

That's the idea. It's worked for years, at least
since
we
capitalized Campbell's bliss and Sagan's billions and billions of stars.

Workers will work for food and a feeling. And Facebook.
They choose, believe what's easiest, they are told,
you are absolutely co-rectallatime, tekayepeel.

There are such wishes being made, on all manner of stars
for happy ever afters. If wishes were asked for, whatif
connecting to the source of haps that are
all happiness can possibly
consist of...
Oh, consist is a sticky, gluten idea stuck in my daily bread.
It's related to resist, desist and the command to stand. Sistere.

This is that bomb, this is a dam buster Jesus H Christ Bomb!

Something's bound on earth to go wrong,
ever since Eve bit that apple, if she'da left that apple on the apple tree
Nah, that ain't how it went down and
songs about it don't change it none.

But, maybe this is me interrupted..
Whatif, nothing is immaterial, as an idea, it can't go wrong,
and Murphy's law, obeyed, is good, all the time.
Ask the pilot. What if,
asking for help helps? Was that a message? A touch by an angel?
Spirit, the idea?
Are you familiar with its role in reality?
Something makes these bubbles spin, y'know.

Ignoring is bliss, nay,
No more,
precisely, nevermore, quotheraven, shall the man who can read
be locked away from all the stories of all the things that
men, wombed and un,
have told and tested for ever, it seems,
when ya stop
striving for perfection and let patience have her way witcha,

whatcha learn can change the world.

Look back. Good news from a far country come our way.
In my younger days, I visited folks in county homes, the rest homes that once were called the po house, and sometimes I'd just sit and watch Jeopardy, and hold her hand, while listening to conversations with angels, all around me.
Thandiwe Jun 2016
It is at that moment of a crumbling ideology, you face the hardest of questions, questions that won't shake off until sufficient answers are given.

How it happens that when you get refined for a better life it has to hurt so much and even lead to questioning the significance of existence.

They often say celebrate the time in the valley as you celebrated the time on the hill...

The valley happens to be growling with wolves who can not stand the sound of rejoicing and are ready to pounce and devour their enemy.

These thoughts are from a hazy place, one that has no clear vision of its direction. The heart...however knows this too will pass, it's in the waiting for the pass that you grow weary and extremely sad.

You feel you can't stand yourself and reserve all opinion on sin because you have been swimming in it.

Putting up with a double-life in order to remain sane....but the former ways still reside in the finger tips of the sinner.

Appetizing at first but only to scar the very fiber of normality you tried to uphold.

Is it okay to say it is really tiresome... To smile when you actually feel like frowning, to laugh when you just want to cry till life stopped...

I just read somewhere "It's not easy, but it is simple. You have to trust God, no matter what you may face."

When I read it I felt the heaviness of what life can be - either beautiful or ugly, trip me. Literally trip me over my current issues and challenges. Falling ******* the fact that I need God, whether I want Him or not...

When I think of the many hardships people are facing in this world, I realise I am wimping for nothing...when mine are minute theirs are gigantic.

But whatif...just whatif even my minute issues cause me gigantic heartache...heartache that feels like my life is being lived by someone else...someone that I actually don't even like.

Heartache that leaves wanting to cradle in God's arms forever, to never have to face the failures and bad choices of my life.

To not have to see my ugly self in the eyes of a reformed me. They are in constant conflict with each other and remain in their separate worlds despite the freedom offered by Jesus.

It is the strangest thing...looking at yourself through a third pair of eyes. They see you. See your messed up behaviour and see you as you fall deeper into the trap of sin.

They see when you happy and worshiping on the hill. When nothing can knock you over and everything you touch turns to gold.

Both times I suppose, you were being prepared for that place which has been in your dreams and has been your vision all these years.

To get there clearly isn't easy. Probably was never meant to be. Some days are better then others, while for the most part, most days really involve going through the motion.

I can't wait to be loved, cared for and sinking in the truth of being appreciated.

Suppose I can be thankful. I am blessed. I am grateful. I am loved.

Just some days it feels like it is all going to fall apart, like the rug has been pulled under my feet.

As I solider on, I thank my Maker for the gift of writing...as it always helps me make sense of this jungle I call life.
YUKTI  Sep 2018
#whatif
YUKTI Sep 2018
what if I stopped believing in you ??

All your blessings will turn into a curse.
All your sympathy will make me worse.

What if You mold my heart of glass accordingly,

All my life I will remain coward.
All my self-love will be shattered.


What if I will be happy seeing you leaving

All our love will be till the dawn.
All our special bond will be broken down..

What if you would be the toxic water poured over a flower like me.
Alcris Mendoza  Feb 2018
WhatIf?
Alcris Mendoza Feb 2018
What if the moon disappears this night,
what if the star stops from shining?

What if I won't wake up anymore tomorrow,
what if my dreams turns into a nightmare,
what if I say to you that "I can't breathe",
What if this would be my last night?

Would there will be any changes?

When I talk to you, it means that I miss you,
But when I don't talk to you, it means that I'm waiting for you to miss me too.
#ChancesAreWasted
Ken Pepiton Aug 2019
drumm drumm drummed in two
ranks of
auto-
filers whacking keys and levers and springs
slamming
edged
quantum of scripture
i e o u y vowels of no need-- back in cunieforming time
then came those monkeys with the typesetters
whose keys never got stuck
uno
marko per stroke
five 'undred per bit of etaoinshrdlu
click click cliche'
time measured by degrees in fractual
sym-metry wit' bio me

Tumeric kicks in,
eases the swelling of the bubble.

Imagine the imaginings of a child reading
funny papers
in the privy, smokin' grapevine for no

known reason, or,
maybe it appeased the flies, while I sat
upon the throne
in a tower of my own

wandering through memories of
Terry and the Pirates saving Dalai Lama
from the clutches of
the abomb-in-abled snowman,

Yet-i isis now, the Prince of Persia, once more?

No, this battle is not mine. This
war
was
won;

at that crossroad in Perry's Cafe
when the offer was made: star a footnote here
aster-risks have not been invented... we must reduce opacity.
histoical he refused the deal but  did Write the course
"The Internet in One Day"

work for hire, a good gig, then Netscape went public,

reality validated verification of the efficacy
of Feynman's reversible NAND gates,

the future was super positioned
No taxes, tarriffs or tithes; pay flat
twenty percent
for eighty in return, guaranteed in for by of
we, the people's adaptation to

Paredo's Principle versed in Solomonic Wisdom,
re-de-clearing no non new things
under the sun,
trial by

total emersion in a sea of green sans
yellah submarine,

acid etched re
collectibles dust and debris,
flotsam jetsome wetsome old girls dream

it's now, the future, 2019, and some
of us
survived the seventies in hiding,

we're back.
wee voices you ignore at your peril,

not every inspiration is from for by good.

Some are.
Some words live in the sounds they make,
hocus pocus
abra
cadabra, for instance... is heard by children

as the leaven-less wafer
transmogrifates at
the spoken words Hoc es Corpus

Genutim, non factum
magic
thinking is nothing like

what you thought, child.

The message is believable, the messengers
may
be otherwise. EH? ***-eye-say-- eee- eh?

Self-evidence is acceptible, take a hold,
get agrippa comprehension

sweet-almost
persuasive enough to mask the bitter
ever
after taste of century eggs left in the fridge too long

Biome, bio-me, self-effident-icacious
conch-ious
ness, ac
knowledged... these words lived
once,
the eggish-isms egging us on, go
on, only you...
not me, I'll wait
I've slipped, I've fallen... where's the beef? Was this a common quest?

1972. Sheizbomb, pirate orange sunshine.
1973. We reached escape velocity
1974. Trajectory changed
1975. Lost contact, she's near Cuyguna
1976. Prego
1977. Aha, the reason is born

Future 2019 will seem as real as you may
imagine. I promise,

Ever after, all, as real as you may
imagine. I promise

look, see self evident truth, act asif you know
and understand
angel talk

there remains a rest for the cadabre we inhabit,
"Dancing Queen" "Fernando"
Abba's body of disco hits, missed
by missing one decade and a half,

in sanct-if-ication vacation
to become a hermit when I grew old, if ever,

hoc corpus, eh, as long as faith remains
rememe-r-able post Sini-ification of Suffering,

(the Dragon from the East is not the beast
embodied in the west with golden head,
silver breast, brazen *****, iron legs
and flaking rusting feet of steel
stuck
in sludge ponds and stump ponds and undrained
swamps and sloughs {called wet lands by frogs and ducks})
Ah, so

The golden-green-blue dragons gracing slotmachines,
lure hopers to the slime, not
green Nickleodean slime, real slime from century eggs white
jelly gone dark, dark brown and stinky...

even if i'd tried, I'd never have imagined
eating a century egg
sans chewing, just
gulp
swallow it whole. Din't choke gk kg.

deja vu? no, you missed something.

waiting is being
Dalai Lama, half-scientist, half-otherwise aware
there, in exile,
remains hoping a peace past standing under the
acknowledging of good
and evil,

new mercies on one side, meaculpa, mea
maxima culpa,
on the other.

Who pays? Me or Jesu or the pariah one step
up from a cockroach?
Wait and see. Be still.

Don't ask Mother Teresa, she had no clue.
But she finished what she began,
that was her plan,

skip as much purgatory as abody can stand
imagining worth it all.

Me, says the hermit,
I took the grace Noah found. Wait and see. Get ready.

Google translate the Latin Mass, then imagine it
being a message you must hearken to

drum drumm drummmed into your brain before
your prefrontal
cortextual tester circuits formed and your responses

were ever etched
on the tables of your faith belivin' childheart,
sweetheart,

just think, what if good news gathering is
even-jelly-if I can. Evangelical, if I say-tion sugar pi,
event-tually we see, fine,
details, points to every true story

a bed of nails no liar may rest upon

'fi say so, semper fi.

{evangelicum laude graduates bher no bad news in ever}
--phi beta kappa, key that opens what?-- do you know

what meaning signals breathe? beat?

Take great gulping gasps of air,
affording your self
evident right

to surface, as a bubble you can breathe in.
I think we're alone now

there doesn't seem to be any one around, now

1977, that was four whole decades ago?

Right. And whenever you are, dear reader, this was
ever ago. I testify, I examined this life.

It has been worth the effort. Now I wait. Still.
Try it. Here, there,

no condemnation, the act it self just
is null-ift before asif goes whatif and we lose our value,

we balance madness. We work closely with Cleo,
she handles historical re visioning.

time out-- essential term screams for discretion, get to the grain---
What noise is this... mmmmm
Muse- muse- just, muse like
music, drummm drummm hummmmm
Define, fine, granularity, like salt or sand or sugar
but qualia
mysterium familiarus

Term definition. Lord means h'laf weardan, {Welsh}
warden,
protector of our bread,
by which man does not live alone,
owner of the tower in the vinyard where your captive enemies
languish in your wishless hate.

We wait,

we companions be, joined by the leaven from the sky

leaving footprints in granulated sugar salted sand,
feel it,

sorta sticky, like toe-jam. like mebbe toejam spreader
and the Walrus was
CS Lewis level mere signposts at degrees of little thinker
steps tick tic tic
spiraling
clock wise from up,
counter-clockwise from down

forward, ever onward, off is impossible in the land of on,
here for ever is
too much good stuff,

but that lasts (to the same level of qualia judgment degree)
mere mortal moments

flash. Here we be, wondering and wandering, to an fro,
to get a feel,

for real. This can't go on for ever, they say.
Shall we see, I say... as I passed away.
Life goes on, and no lie follows

Listen,
it's finished, that's all we need say. Live on. Be good,
or die trying. No lying about anything.

What if ever did begin and you simply failed to be aware?
Musing, as a pass time, not a wast of time nor a killing of time, but a use by right of time. This is my examined life. I find it worth living more loudly as I age. The ripeningin, reminds me of cheesy-ness.
mike dm May 2016
light magenta vertical;
gaurdian of the margin.

light blue horizontal;
conveyer of the ledger.

the space
between -
white teeth gleam,

refracting
lunarlit scribbles

across one loose leaf,
fell by some god
awful idiot,

all for
you
to space

out
on.

i will be
written
down
yesteday

in elegant
recursive
flicks
of the

wrist -

a has-been
fate.

so, i am not supposed to be here.
not anymore, anyway.

i know that.
i am three-hole
punch drunker.
awkwarder.

but those potential
whatif's glyph bright
behind closed eyelids,

and
it

makes
me wonder
just a little longer.

indigo
cursor
blink.
blink. blink.

blink.
Esridersi Dec 2018
Spend less time...
Clinging onto whatif branches .
They’re frail & sapless.

When happiness breezes by, it can’t be contained in a bottle.
If you don’t understand the breeze,
you’ll climb desperately
tumbling from broken branches & broken spirits, only to be plopped where you started, but sorer.

Let go completely and fall, the wind will catch you,
toss you up and around
and gently set you down
on the dirt

— The End —