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Correctional Poems - Poems about Correctional

Life Inside A Florida Prison

the walls sweat like old drunks

union correctional, they call it—

correction my ass,

this place was built for breaking.

men bleed here, quietly,

a shiv under the ribs,

a mop bucket wheeled by,

nobody looks too long.

guards strut fat on overtime,

pockets heavy with side deals,

they sell cigarettes like gods

and laugh at the rest of us starving.

chow hall—if you can call it

Categories: correctional, 12th grade,
Form: Free verse

Correctional Choreography poem


It’s a place I feel off—
not wedded to anything.
Truculent.
I think in riddles
and answer in metaphors.

I dance on my tiptoes—
an adagio of agony.
Passion pirouettes
out of sight.

Tethered.
Bound by grief.
Temptation forgotten,
tempered.
It no longer exists.

It was a pas de deux,
now it’s just a deuce—
a petulant penitent,
an unwanted pardon.

The dancer stirs.
The pulse quickens
to a tango.

Recalcitrant and longing.
Unable to follow the

Categories: correctional, angst, change, culture,
Form: Free verse

Union Correctional Institution

the heat presses down like a drunk cop’s boot,
metal fences shiver in the sticky Florida sun,
concrete walls spit their old secrets at you,
black mildew crawls across everything,
like it's alive and goddamn winning.

men with broken teeth laugh in corners,
playing cards with cigarette ashes and dreams,
the guards walk slow, like they own death,
keys jangling like a bad

Categories: correctional, 12th grade,
Form: Free verse

Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry

Hoover or Kirby Correctional payoffs

Rather Galesburg Joliet 
Terrehaute Florence Colorado 
to the shores of Bogotá 
flushing heroin fentanyl 
through the gates behind bars 
thee corrupt prison ran 
by gang leaders paying 
off prison guards you can 
ask yourself what brand 
to buy into Hoover vacuum’s 
are reliable American made 
while Kirby Brands offers 
negligence falsifying death 
row inmates finally

Categories: correctional, allah, confidence,
Form: Masnavi

Dunes Correctional Facility

A blanket laying, book-reading, lemonade sipper 
     turns a page
There is a ghost of sadness in this place
    shared madness, despair and rage

Somewhere in the sandy and dreaded dune
     convicted breath feels as warm as the month of June
She feels the depression that once

Categories: correctional, depression, history, sad,
Form: Free verse

Correctional Distillation

Millipede. Multitude. Millionaire damson. When elevation is caused by an unauthorized z code a b could be an m an an m could be a t or an a so please do not throw coats into the weirs. Especially in snow or sun. As yet a vehicular version of a pavement has yet to be

Categories: correctional, art, assonance,
Form: I do not know?

On the Correctional Faculty: Part Ii

what we’ve got here

is much more than a failure to communicate---

for what has been happening for years is only

intensifying---

our behavior as a society is not one in which we even attempt to rehabilitate,

medicate or give therapy anymore---

instead,

a very very small fraction of the population

which owns everything & thrives from the

desecration, degradation & detriment of

others within

Categories: correctional, life,
Form: Free verse

On the Correctional Faculty: Part I

the megajails are coming &

with them, the richest country in the world which

without any irony whatsoever,

continues to lock up the largest percentage of its own citizens in the world &

then throws away the key,

hoping to never hear from the incarcerated again---

as the population of prisoners in this country swells,

revenue increases,

brought in by the building of

Categories: correctional, life, world,
Form: Free verse

The Correctional Officer's Last Interview

SOMETIMES WHEN IT’S QUIET AND I AM ALL ALONE I GET A SCARE.
I WANDER WHAT IT WILL BE LIKE WHEN I GET THERE.

AS A C.O. I HOPE TO LOOK AT THE LORD 
& HOLD STRAIGHT & SQUARE.
I HOPE MY BOOTS SHINE AND MY I AM JUDGED FAIR.

HE WILL SAY, “OFFICER WHAT DO I DO WITH

Categories: correctional, life, on work and
Form: Rhyme

Correctional Officers Prayer

We Go Inside The Fence For Every Shift,
We Pray It’s Safe, Peaceful And Swift.

We Put Up With Inmates, Convicts, 
Administration & The Rest.
We Pray Each Day To Do Our  Best.

We Have A Thin Line That We Must Walk,
With Courage From God, We Shall Not Balk.

Each Day We Put Ourselves In Harm’s Way,
So Our Family

Categories: correctional, workday,
Form: Rhyme