any good poems about something unattainable?

Question

for example, knowledge, perfection, etc?

Answer 1

(1) Go to bookstore or library and thumb through complete book of Emily Dickinson, indexed by topic. Since her poems have no titles, many books arrange them this way for fast reference. Simple, short, and profound on abstract, universal themes.
Also Kahlil Gibran's "The Prophet" with chapters by topic.
(2) All lyrics by Nine Inch Nails/Trent Reznor. Can search online "lyrics" "Nine Inch Nails" "Downward Spiral" etc. "Something I can never have" "Closer" etc. His best songs are known for honest struggling with intense pain and feeling lost in the fight. When he was criticized in a Christian magazine, many Christian listeners and music students wrote back in his defense about the spiritual depth to his music and the need to understand human pain and suffering. Very moving.
(3) And one original poem, on knowing and not knowing, I must have channeled from Emily Dickinson. I don't normally write anything like this, so I attribute it to her spirit as the source:

A Message from the Universe

Behind the Iron Curtain,
Beyond the Fall of Rome,
There's Hope in the uncertain,
And Truth in the unknown.

Beneath the stars and planets,
Along the coral reef,
A method calms the madness,
And war gives in to peace.

Fear not my changing surface
For what may lie below,
But trust a higher Purpose
That only Heaven knows.

Alternate ending:
That you already know.

http://www.houstonprogressive.org/sonnet78.html

You may use this freely as it was given to me.

Answer 2

Two come to mind
Gnome by Samuel Beckett T
The Poem by Homera Aridjis
See also Rilke The Elegies
have a look at C.P. Cavafy

What is it a candle-flame remembers
too little and it goes out
What is it a candle-flame remembers
too little and it goes out

George Seferis

hope these contain an element of the unattainable your question paths toward

snoozen

Answer 3

Don't Quit


When things go wrong, as they sometimes will

When the road you're trudging seems all uphill

When the funds are low and the debts are high

And you want to smile, but you have to sigh



When care is pressing you down a bit

Rest, you must - but don't you quit

Life is queer with its twists and turns

As everyone of us sometimes learns



And many a failure turns about

When he might have won had he stuck it out

Don't give up, though the pace seems slow

You might succeed with another blow



Success is failure turned inside out, the silver tint of the clouds of doubt

And you never can tell how close you are, It may be near when it seems so far

So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit

It's when things seem worst, That you MUST NOT QUIT!



by Quinton Howell

Answer 4

Wallace Stevens
"Of Mere Being"


The palm at the end of the mind,
Beyond the last thought, rises
In the bronze decor.

A gold-feathered bird
Sings in the palm, without human meaning,
Without human feeling, a foreign song.


You know then that it is not the reason
That makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its feathers shine.


The palm stands on the edge of space.
The wind moves slowly in the branches.
The bird's fire-fangled feathers dangle down.

Answer 5

Friends and Flaterrers by Edgar allan poe

Answer 6

teddy thougt it was a hat so I put it on now dad's runnin round the house yellin' where the hecks that toilet plunger gone!!!

By: Shel Silverstein

lololololol Ilove this poem

Answer 7

"If" byRudyard Kipling