"One Eyed Joe" (National Poetry Month poem-a-day) Day 17
Written by Bruce A.
Pandolfo
4/17/2017
Mid 1800's, John
Frankford from Lancaster,
When it comes to equine
crimes, John was a grand master,
Once had words with a
warden, awarding, adulating
himself: “I stole all
the missing horses in the state” he stated
The Pennsylvanian
famous for another reputation,
indicted 25 times, but
was too great at escaping,
feasibly the region's
Houdini, imprisonment was a joke,
Escape routes easy,
routinely he did it alone,
But the Buzzard Boys
once busted him out with other folks
The brother's bird-cage
trick unchained this jailbird who'd flown.
The county jail finally
fed up with Frankford's freedom,
Forged a tough cell for
him, opining “that'd surely keep him,”
A tough sell for him,
John cut open the bars to leave it
headed to the stuffy
cellar, dug through the wall's concrete then-
He Claus-crawled up the
jail's chimney seemingly sweeping,
he ascended the flue,
the keeper waited with a shooter to greet him
Finally John rises to
the top, then Keeper Wise shot him to teach this
misguided guy to stop,
his guise a macabre cyclops, in pieces
His eye popped, now
he's One Eyed Joe when you meet him
His eyelid dropped (not
his crimes in equine law) but they beat him,
This time he's caught,
indicted, called max 19 years in Eastern.
Confining lodging, iron
bars, a skylight “Eye to God” to see him.
The headlines proposed
in this prison Joe met his match,
There's no way he'd
slip out, and he didn't that's a fact
When his Daughter
Maggie'd visit, he never complained to his credit,
though “ here Life's
not your own” is quoted in tones of Joe's depression
Joe there for a decade
he's allotted some jobs, one guarding the dogs
Notorious with horses
he'd magically manage menageries? not at all
Splitting up a
dogfight, they chomped his arm, nearly gnawed it off,
inflicted infected,
“get Bacon” they called the Doc, to salve and solve
late one night, Joe's
greatest escapist flight: when taken by infection
Maggie, they decide to
take the ride to Eastern State to try to get him,
Make the drive to
Lancaster to have a proper grave site to respect him..
Strange replies evasive
lies when they came by to collect him,
“Wait in line, this
takes some time” Doctor Bacon cried,
finally when they
arrived Doc was on some “pay no mind”
Joe is disemboweled,
lacerated vacant chest with a blatant Y
stitches around his
crown no brain inside, resembled Frankenstein!
The bruises confusing,
the doctor lied to the family,
Then one day Alexander
Lipsner, an inmate called Maggie,
Said a sneak to visit
Frankford suddenly went badly,
Navigated snow to see
Dr. Bacon working madly
On a table was a naked
casualty clearly his friend Joe,
Dr. Bacon is casually
pulling organs from bodily holes
Brain, heart, entrails,
filling a bucket or chilled in the snow,
Lipsner testified:
“this could be any inmate you know...”
But Bacon took it in
stride like it's behavior we'd all clone,
he's one of many
body-snatchers like so many sawbones
“Criminal cadaver
trash we need practice this solves both!”
“When at Uni, you
need a corpse..”
(of course prompting
throngs of mob droves...)
The case was
controversial, more than you might think,
Joe's brain was never
recovered so he's elusive as ever,
Picture the famed man
whose heavy lid seems a slight wink,
As if the story proves
some part of him is free forever...
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