"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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