Famous Unreachable Poems by Famous Poets

These are examples of famous Unreachable poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous unreachable poems. These examples illustrate what a famous unreachable poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).

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Weirdos

by Sasha Skenderija
Deep and unreachable in their darknesses, 
capriciously childish and tender
when we write to each other,
while we talk about one of us
who is not around.

I grew up with some of them,
others, who I met as grown-up people,
I could unerringly pick out in their photo albums 
on group pictures of their school classes. 
They've always been like that.

They remember every detail I've...Read more of this...

Far Within Us #1

by Vasko Popa
 We raise our arms
The street climbs into the sky
We lower our eyes
The roofs go down into the earth

From every pain
We do not mention
Grows a chestnut tree
That stays mysterious behind us

From every hope
We cherish
Sprouts a star
That moves unreachable before us

Can you hear a bullet
Flying about our heads
Can you hear a bullet
Waiting to ambush our kiss...Read more of this...

A Riddle Song

by Walt Whitman
 THAT which eludes this verse and any verse, 
Unheard by sharpest ear, unform’d in clearest eye or cunningest mind, 
Nor lore nor fame, nor happiness nor wealth, 
And yet the pulse of every heart and life throughout the world incessantly, 
Which you and I and all pursuing ever ever miss,
Open but still a secret, the real of the real,...Read more of this...

Ambulances

by Philip Larkin
Closed like confessionals, they thread
Loud noons of cities, giving back
None of the glances they absorb.
Light glossy grey, arms on a plaque,
They come to rest at any kerb:
All streets in time are visited.

Then children strewn on steps or road,
Or women coming from the shops
Past smells of different dinners, see
A wild white face that overtops
Red stretcher-blankets momently
As it is carried in and...Read more of this...

Mornings Like This

by Barry Tebb
 Mornings like this I awaken and wonder

How I have moved so far, how I have moved so little

And yet in essence stayed the same

Always passionate for the unattainable

For Joan Baez to make me her analyst,

To tour Ireland with Eddie and Finbar Furey

To be made a Chevalier des Palmes for translating Milosz.

I remember one road, many roads I did not...Read more of this...

Elegy For My Father

by Annie Finch
 HLF, August 8, 1918—August 22, 1997

“Bequeath us to no earthly shore until
Is answered in the vortex of our grave
The seal’s wide spindrift gaze towards paradise.”
—Hart Crane, “Voyages”

“If a lion could talk, we couldn’t understand it”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein

Under the ocean that stretches out wordlessly
past the long edge of the last human shore,
there are deep windows the waves haven't opened,
where night is...Read more of this...

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