Long Prison Poems
Long Prison Poems. Below are the most popular long Prison by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Prison poems by poem length and keyword.
Seven cows, fat and plump,
Feeding in the reed grass,
Emerging from the Nile.
Seven cows, ugly, thin,
Stood beside for a while,
Swallowing the fat cows up!
Seven ears, plump and good,
All growing on one stalk.
Seven ears, blighted, thin,
Swallowing the good ears up!
Spirit troubled, king awoke,
Called his wise and magic men:
What does this dream mean, then?
Cupbearer then recalled,
“A young man in prison,
With the baker and with me,
Interpreted our dreams.”
Then the king fetched Joseph
And shared his dreams with him,
Asked him what they might mean.
Seven cows, fat and plump
Seven cows, ugly, thin
Fat cows get swallowed up!
Seven ears, plump and good
Seven ears, blighted, thin
Plump ears get swallowed up!
Then Joseph told the king,
“Your dreams are both the same,
They reveal what God will do.”
Seven good cows and ears,
Ample crop, bounty years.
Withered cows, blighted ears,
Bad drought and famine years.
Dreams like this come in twos,
Leaving little time to choose.
Famine soon, and severe.
Hurry now to prepare,
A man of God can help you.
The king was much impressed,
Also, was much distressed.
“We need a man of God.
All this, He revealed, yes?
Can you help save Egypt?”
Joseph was then set free;
He became the king’s right hand,
Set up the granaries,
The Lord then saved them all.
(from Genesis 41)
Joke was on him
A lie can perpetuate with a blinding speed
Growing on the heels of shameful greed
If enough people believe a con-man's spiel
And blindly proceed to invest in a dubious deal.
He began quite small with his Ponzi scheme
Stomping ruthlessly on gullible citizen's dream
Pretending that he was investing in stock market
Delivering promised returns regularly on target.
Becoming famous as word of high returns spread
Billions he attracted as testimonials mislead,
Paying current clients from new-client receipts
Manipulating his records to hide his deceits.
Although his company was frequently audited
No one could detect the fraud being committed.
Suspicions ran high for returns were unbelievable,
Authorities were fooled by a fraud inconceivable.
Ponzi scheme thrives on constant new cash flow
As new funds meet outflows that continue to grow,
But it collapses in a hurry if new money stops
For clients demand refunds as the company flops.
A market-crash caused new money to dry out
Bringing to a quick end his fraudulent clout
As he confessed to a multibillion fraud scheme
When finally he realized that the joke was on him.
Investors big and small were caught by surprise
Lives that were ruined continue to agonize.
Soon he was arrested for his long tenure of crime
And sentenced to prison for his remaining lifetime.
His son committed suicide overcome by veracity
As his wife deflects shame in solitude of tenacity.
While he sits in jail for a crime of this century
Grievous losses torment lives due to his treachery.
A fraud only propagates till its ultimate demise
For truth always conquers defeating all lies.
November 26, 2017
I started a joke
Sponsor: Maria Williams
First Place
Note: This Ponzi scheme was uncovered after the 2008 market crash. Though the fraudster never invested in the market, new money flow stopped because investors were spooked by the market decline and ensuing recession. He confessed when he couldn't make a multi-billion payment due in 2008. He was sentenced to 150 years in jail. One of his sons committed suicide, the other son died. His brother was also sentenced to jail--all worked for the firm.
Jack Segal (who wrote the lyrics for the song “Scarlet Ribbons”), whose songwriting workshop I attended way back in the 80's, used to say, “sometimes we have to murder our darlings”. What he meant by this was, sometimes, as writers, we have to cut out the parts that we're personally in the most love with for the sake of the whole work. That's the concept on which this poem is based.
So Many Darlings
I have murdered so many “darlings”
that I should be in prison for 10 thousand lives
As a novelist I have killed men, women, and children.
Given my blood thirsty nature it's amazing that any survived.
Out of all of us my best friend
Came to an inglorious, untimely ugly end
We were digging holes inside a cave
But what he didn’t know was that he was digging his own grave
When it was finally time to go to bed
He turned around and a Nazi shot him in the head
He fell into the hole he had just dug
And the Nazi covered him up with an old dirty rug
They poured gasoline on him and set him afire
That was to become my friends funeral pyre
We were made to stand there and watch him burn
And the Nazi said, "This is your lesson to learn”
That night we all went to bed
Full of sadness, fear and dread
What happened that night really gave us a fright
Nothing was ever going to be alright
At night I see the ghosts of the lost
During the day I see the price that it cost
The Nazis have no religion or conscience
They only believe in killing and science
Later that day, a Nazi came with something he made
It was a very awful ugly lamp shade
On one side of the shade was something I knew
It was one of my dead friend’s tattoos!
Of the unfortunate unlucky dead
The Nazis were shrinking heads!
And they were making all kinds of things
Out of the prisoners, their gold teeth and rings
One night so cold I was watching my frozen breath
The Nazis came and took me away to see Dr. Death
He said he was going to give me a shot and it would do no harm
He rolled up my sleeve and stuck a needle in my arm
That was after Christmas in 1944 late December
And from that moment on nothing I remember
An American soldier told me that when he found me
I was walking around the prison yard like a lifeless zombie
Now it’s early May 1945
And somehow I am still alive
It’s amazing that I am not insane
The last survivor of the last train
To understand the holocaust
You must understand all it cost
In this camp it cost the lives of over a million
Of innocent men, women and children
Now we speak of all the lives lost
In the past tense
It all really comes down to the cost
Of all the dead and the presence of absence
Against all of humanity there leaves a void
A hideous heinous crime
So many promising lives destroyed
In one short period of time
Lives that were vital and present
All became past tense
And we can still feel and resent
Their absence of presence
Crypt and memories of the past
I feel like a corpse in a morgue, I am already that, a living dead
My crypt is so cold, dark, blind darkness everywhere, life after life
I got up, but the door was closed, this is my prison, found myself here the eternal life
Passed years, passed life, forgotten love, only illusion of my life, and illusory of the world, deceit
Child age, youth, parents, family, our house, sisters and brothers, girlfriends, workplaces, church, and my bicycle have not existed, it was all make-believe
Hmm, very bad this cemetery life, the smell of death, infinite demonic life, and eternal suffering became my class after death
Maybe this is Hell. Is this the Hell? Hmm, I don't know, it’s blind of mind, but not a human life, not a man's life, not a human being anymore
I want to leave this life, but I can’t this crypt is my jail, there is no light, just memories, and memories from the past run everywhere in my mind
Hmm, I can’t do anything, I am a prisoner of my past, when do I get out of here? I don’t know, no idea, time is cruel, my memories kill my life
HUMILITY FOUND
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When ego's fragile form begins to fade,
a limitless expanse of soul appears.
The boundaries that once bound and confined,
now stretch, expand, transform, and astound.
In losing the ego self, another universe is found,
a world of wonder, limitless, and esoteric.
The chains of comparison are severed;
they no longer bind, no longer suffocate either you or me.
The prison of competition is left behind,
unfettered, enlightenment grows.
In this vast and open place, humility also grows, and
a web of love and Divine interconnectedness prevail.
Written: May 11, 2025, for contest by: Sara Jama
Quote: “Let the beauty of what you love be what you do. Sorrow prepares you for joy." By Rumi
********************
Sky unveils a deep, katabatic chasm
Fuchsia flames ignite blooms, slicing in layers of strife
Brilliant yantras reside in our mental spaces
As we boldly paint our stories upon chattered hearts
Harboring emotional shrapnel and sorrows.
A memory prison beckons us to descry
Heart-hyacinths, mysterious luna
As sapphire armor shields my spirit,
While magnolias, mist—bereft of magic, wafts rot in time.
I no longer wish to conform to the lamenters
I feel like a ghost playing pranks after being imprisoned
Surrounded by shameful shards and a gloomy silence
Soft sighs leave emotional marks on the skin
As I grieve and descend into the abyss.
Hope hatches a hopeful heart while malaise mourns
Struggle and bloom quarrel in my heart's heavy cloak
A kismet-woven quilt groans as it falls in harsh brooks
Wicked words scatter like venom in a broken glass.
Vehement rants veiled in vivid visions of the soul
Everything hurts, and shrapnel pierces my core
In a heated chaos, whispers sprout Kenospia kernels
In cosmic calls, I gain wild, wielding a quill to sever ties.
How can love bear pain or looming ruin to serve solace?
Heat fuels molten bronze as heaven whims.
Painful pillars tugged at my chest, luring my torn spirit
Lost lifesaving light wanes as lethal rise dims into the chasm.
Little hurts cross defects, sparks ignite a vast blaze
Torn souls find a stern shelter, and an icy stream kills chaos.
Shame glistens in the moonlight, and stampeded disease stings.
The Mill wheel wouldn't turn until the Spring
And still today in thought a chill it brings
The vision of the ice upon the lake
That time in passing still can not erase
That mill wheel in the grip of winter's breath
Stone cold and still ... a lifelsss wheel of death
When on that morn there in the ice appeared
Beneath its surface there a face of fear
Whispers ran through the town from door to door
Whispers that Charlie Winters killed Lenore
Frozen streams of blood there on the wheel
Found on that morning... by old man Mac Neil
A long lock of flaxen hair...gathered there
Beneath that wheel...a weight to much to bear
Oh ! How the broken vows of marriage weep
Ice melts, revealing secrets wheel creaks
~~~
Behind these prison bars I pass the years
Finally stripped of anger by my tears
July 15, 2018
Author: Elaine Cecelia George of Canada
A Mystery to be Solved
“The Land of Peace”
A mystery to be solved is left for the world
no one ever knew it
cause their thinking haven’t gone beyond those boundaries
Why those souls are leaving those hearts ?
To where those souls are travelling now?
Do they know which road they should take
Are they going to the “Land of Peace”
Questions Remain, Answers left alone.
Secrets are still,
The prisoners of Darkness. the mysteries are giving
scary smiles at me, but I won’t give up
No matter What !
From that prison “ Hallow of Dark”
I will set those secrets free
A mystery to be solved is left for the world
No one ever knew it
cause theirs thoughts
haven’t seen what lies, beyond those boundarys
A mystery to be solved
“The Land of Peace”
The grinding motors of decaying engines
Panted in ever shorter gasps on the voyage to the “capolinea”
And the doors in the corridor passways
Swung open and closed, biting the green-yellow light of need
Seeping in through the lacunae of an afternoon of un-affection.
Here lamenting sighs of obese monsters were carried away
Over backward sucking tracks covered with spit and urine
And the cries of spoiled over-fed and un-cared for infants
Punctuated its incessant pull, mistaken for prayers of Aeneas.
The air was wet with sugary juices dripping from their mouths
Which had already sucked out too much from Mother Earth
And their comic books were filled with old coloured obscenities
Rotting putrefied images of the Demiurge’s great untouchables.
Stinking incomplete phrases were vomited up onto membranous spheres
From an underworld of sulphur and smoke
Vomited up onto the doorsteps of the passing stations of life
Where poor miserable and violent creatures waited
In a raging hurricane of hate and wickedness
Whose centre was a blackened hole in a storm of madness.
The oxygen of life was pulled out of the vegetation
Now cancerous cankerous parenchyma no longer green
As death tried to re-create itself outside itself
In a final futile attempt to feel an instant of life
Insane within the rumbling white dust of loss and negation.