Long Institutional Poems
Long Institutional Poems. Below are the most popular long Institutional by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Institutional poems by poem length and keyword.
Heart
by Odin Roark
Can an enigma be weighed?
Many would hold the heavy heart
Is indeed noticeably of greater weight
And yet…
What can the heart do
When all its wishes is respect
As real
As both tangible
And insoluble?
The heart has few friends
Its bodyguards
Lung left
Lung right
Hold 24/7 vigils
Knowing without aeration
Man’s lifeline is severed
Storms
Good times
Makes no difference
Pumping continues
The gasp of birth
Forever faithful
Still
Comes hurt
Comes denial
Come battles lost
Our hearts panic
Asking lungs
To take the bullet
Like mothers
Fathers
Secret Service
Internal instincts
Obviate thinking
Risk death at any cost
So goes the miraculous nature
Safeguarding the one institutional identity
One can really trust
Life’s experience
Most likely has no measurement
But we know heavy
Don’t we?
THE GREAT WALL
It’s funny and this is true
Years ago, I thought hopefully of being locked away
I envisioned more of an institutional setting
Nothing to do but roam in my robe
Fingertips lightly brushing the sterile, white walls as I go
No responsibility
No need to even say a word
There’d be talk of Crazy Sachs
Staring into space, wandering wordlessly
Much of this has come to pass
The walls are green and I’m a bit more verbose
But there is that talk
And not much is asked of me besides being seen not heard
I offer this anecdote
For it is the second biggest example in my life
Of the difference between fantasy and reality
Novelty fades fast
Occasionally instantaneously
Expectation begets exaggeration
Excitation leads to exasperation
All in all, between dreams and evil schemes should be a Great Wall
Mine was more an invisible fence
I passed through and was aghast to view the consequence
Slashed through thick vines for a sick crime
I was them first two pigs
Dicking around with straw and twigs
Unhinged when the wolf blew in
hit bricks because the walls were too thin
You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes, you might find
What you want isn’t what you get once it’s got
Now you have to lie down in an unmade cot
Ruin, subvert
Cause one to hurt
Feel lower than dirt
That’s it in a nutshell
Just swell I’m in a jail cell
Bars make for a fine wall
Look, not touch at all
Plan how to build
With my unskilled
Hands that killed
Nearly
That men have no emotions is a misconception
But we drop them with little reception
So we bottle them up inside
Ironically finding the bottom of the bottle to confide
Men are taught to be strong
And that any weakness is wrong
But in my 28 years I've found
These are lies and the truth might astound
Take for instance the little boy with skinned knees
Who happened to fall while enjoying the breeze
Maybe comfort that little boy when he feels weak
Instead of making him feel meek
Men get so used to holding it all in
Until their soul bursts from within
And they lash out in violence
Because they've suffered in silence
And I'll be the first to say it shouldn't be that way
Not day after day after day
Men are taught not to talk
And yet when they strike out we simply balk
At the idea that maybe the problem is institutional
And we might have to move away from the conventional
When men have a higher rate of suicide
And men are more likely to be victims of homicide
There's a toxicity in the foundation
That doesn't fit the narrative of the news station
We're just taught that's the way men are
But this damned lie has been spread too far
To get rid of violence
You must eradicate silence
And some will argue men have every opportunity
But tell that to a young man in the inner city
Who is so used to a cycle of drugs, thugs, and crime
Perpetuated by the media all the time
He's just trying to survive
In a world that will never see him thrive
But as a poet I feel there's something strong in verse
And this social construct is something we can reverse
And I don't condone murder and rape
Just that men need a safe place to escape
And no place is safer than the written word
So encourage your sons to be written and heard
Give them outlets to express their pain
And that it's okay to think with their brain
Instead of resorting to their fists
When they're lost, afraid, and pissed
So that we know men having no emotion is a misconception
Maybe next time give them a little reception
Have you ever heard of the most mysterious book?
No? Well, get online. You must have a look.
I would venture to say that you've never been gripped
by a more inexplicably strange manuscript.
Can you imagine the curious joy which
you'll experience with the Manuscript, Voynich?
Scribed in the fifteenth century (precisely, first half),
it was written on the reluctant skin of a calf.
Of course, as I tell you this, in this sense, I kid -
the calf was quite dead at the time it was did.
It was written in a language that nobody knows,
and has pictures of plants that nobody grows,
plants that have in no place have ever existed,
except in this encyclopedic codex, quite twisted.
What explains this tome now in Yale, institutional?
Was it written by a lunatic, mad and delusional?
Or, if the author didn't suffer that affliction,
could it have been old-fashioned science fiction?
Maybe it is just gibberish or gobbledygook,
in which case, a few scholars got took.
Is it in a made-up language or a code,
or a real language that nobody knowed?
Was it just a fifteenth-century hoax,
perpetrated by monks or unsavory blokes?
Often, mysteries are resolved on the very last page,
but some leaves have been missing since the medieval age.
If you check out this document, and you understand,
tell me and the world, and I'll shake your hand.
Florida prisoners should have their institutional work count toward Social Security benefits.
This policy would recognize their labor's value and provide a safety net upon release, aiding reintegration into society.
Most inmates engage in various forms of work, contributing to prison operations and gaining skills.
Excluding them from Social Security undermines their economic stability and increases the risk of recidivism.
Additionally, recognizing their work ensures fairness and aligns with broader labor rights.
Ultimately, counting institutional work toward Social Security would foster rehabilitation, reduce reoffending, and affirm the dignity of incarcerated individuals.
Anyone can write a poem
I mean, they’ve never passed a law
and with the quick access to paper
and all.
Of course, the serial poet’s the danger
that keeps us up at night - someone lacking
the gene for rhyme control. Normal people can’t
imagine such wonton, naked promiscuity with words.
It’s best that we ignore them - to nip it in the bud.
A real collective effort is required - let us build
institutional archives - yes - we’ll call them libraries - to
lock such verse away - may it never again see the light of day.
If you catch a child with a pencil, slap it out of their little hand
because we cannot start too early in discouraging needless rhyme.
This public service announcement - pointing out this new “poetry”
trend - was made for the benefit of all.
ODE TO MONEYLENDERS
Oh, what designs can one possess
Lending succour to those with naught
Such desperate need one must confess
And how hard one must have fought
When courtesy has no more currency
With those to whom one is indebted
And there is a sad loss of coherency
Then additional loans must be netted
Limited choices never were the best
Yet lenders all may seem attractive
In selecting just one from all the rest
One does have to be quite proactive
Yet each time, the first steps are easy
Later payments getting ever harder
Mounting dues can make one queasy
It can be hunger and an empty larder
Interest becomes the pound of flesh
With debts spiralling out of control
Raw need and sympathy never mesh
As timely repayment is ever the goal
Whether institutional or private loan
More than money may be involved
Property as capital soon sets the tone
And any timely exit is rarely solved
Pleasant outcomes appear quite rare
Borrowing is always a slippery slope
With risk of ending in a pit of despair
And yet for some, there is still hope
The heavy iron anchors dissolve,
giving up their iron shapes to the black fluidity below.
There is no coast left stubborn enough to anchor this tide.
The currents don’t just pull—they misplace the mind entirely.
We traded the absolute for a handful of the gray shade,
building a gallery of cheap mirrors
where everyone manufactures their own version of the light.
Look up: the sky is relative now,
and the soul’s quiet armor simply unlaces itself under that stare.
We are crowded, yet completely atomized.
Fifty people in a room, each sealed in a drywall box of their own design,
calling the silence peace
while the old, shared altars gather dust in the corner.
The origin story is beginning to rot.
We are intentionally scraping the marrow out of our history,
weeding the damp soil so fiercely
that we kill the very seed that brought us out of the ground.
The big myth split. It shattered into a thousand shallow creeks,
leaving nothing but the raw, tribal friction at our core.
Look at the cathedrals of institutional trust—
they aren’t falling; they are turning quietly to gray powder.
The middle is gone. The edges are frayed like old rope.
Something abstract and unreadable is climbing the numbers in the sky
while the heavy, physical foundations go dark.
An invisible mesh is being woven between the thought and the meat of the hand,
keeping our eyes amused with small lights
while the ground beneath the floorboards shifts an inch to the left.
The macro-rhythm finishes its circle.
It is a simple bending toward the dirt.
Just a tired civilization, sitting in the dark,
breathing on the cold coal,
forgetting the geometry of the spark.
Institutional Jargon
Strait lined jacket,
A wheelchair line-up peruses the pasty walls
In synchronized fashion
Secured by schedule
Where the pristine uniform
Clicks heels and strides with purpose
Adorned the fob with pen in pocket
To check the clock and the parade
Of faceless dozers where faraway tellies drone
Dismissed the saline droplet from folded eye
Ignored the fragmented desire to talk
Removed the self seeker to elsewhere
A teacup trolley breaches the languor
And summons the sleepers to take a drink
The war hero must wear his plastic pinny
He wears it with pride just like his medals
As he slobbers the luke-warm liquid
Dished out by the silent and the sullen
Quick automated wipes all round
That tidy up, maintain a dignity
Then charted as fluids taken well
Documented protocol of excellence
That safeguards an ordered day
And eliminates disruptive sound
That cause the uniform to sigh
And break from flippant social chat
To conceal the noise in far off room
Because she’s wearing anothers clothes
And so the day drifts into eve
Food hastened to maintain an early night
And ease the plight of the nocturnal uniform
Nothing untoward in this institutional paradise
There’s nothing at all.
Welcome to my mind, it's a place you will seldom see
You have to be in my peripheral to see the inside of me
For if you are ever welcomed to enter through it's door
You will be forever invited to grace your futures floor
The iconic of mans past will resonate all around
Shaped buildings like Easter Island, in our cities will so abound
Squared skyscrapers of our modern times, will disappear from our view
Statues of man in salute, below purpled skies so true
The skylines you see today, so institutional of their time
It's a place you will seldom see, unless your welcomed into my mind
http://www.thehighlanderspoems.com/ed-unitsky.php