Eastman Johnson, American
“Happy Holiday To You Too, Warden. By the Way, This Being INDEPENDENCE Day, I Don’t Suppose You Could — No? Okay. Just Throwing It Out There,” 1874
Oil on board
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Info, or links that point to more info, about this artist can be found here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here (can be read in full for free on Fridays), here, here, and here (the second of which may be unresponsive), perhaps in addition to what's in his Wikipedia page.
Archive of the webpage pointed to by the 2nd here link (if necessary). The 7th here link’s webpage is no longer available and, sadly, it wasn’t archived; but, this may have more about him.
/// For fifty full star-years or more
he’d paced every inch of the floor.
He’d stared at the wall
and tried to recall
the life he’d been living before.
/// His shipmates had left him behind,
alone, for his captors to find.
They’d locked him away
and forced him to stay
imprisoned here, losing his mind.
/// To make an escape on his own,
he wished there was more he had known:
like exobiology,
alien psychology,
or how to repair a flip-phone.
/// He gazed out the window with dread,
remembering what Bones had said
to Jim Kirk and Spock
(as he lay in shock)
“That redshirt? Let’s go, Jim, he’s dead!”
/// Ever since his crew beamed up for good,
to the window he’d go, where he stood
searching poison-green skies
for that ship– Enterprise.
(He would make it explode, if he could.)
/// To make an escape on his own,
he wished there was more he had known:
like exobiology,
alien psychology,
or how to repair a flip-phone.
/// John Brown planned the raid on Harpers Ferry,
but they faced a well-armed adversary.
Captured when the raid failed,
Brown, impaled and then jailed,
cursed all slave-holders and military.
/// Reenacting an historic battle,
(it was one about humans as chattel),
Dusty gained some renown
‘cause he looked like John Brown,
so he drove all the way from Seattle.
/// In a jail he posed at Harpers Ferry
looking glum, though inside he felt merry.
He peered out through the bars
looking for movie stars.
(He was hoping to sight Halle Berry.)
/// Halle Berry’d been signed up to play
Harriet Tubman for Hulu last May.
She’d film on location
and Dusty’s vocation
gave him hope they would cross paths that day.
/// He had hoped the jail door’d be unlatched
if he twisted this ring he had snatched,
but the man, nearly blind,
couldn’t see that behind
him, the ring had a large bull attached.
/// In this fight he was clearly outmatched.
It came close, but he wasn’t dispatched.
By the bull he was thrown,
(hurling bone against stone),
thus his arm became semidetached.
/// He called out as he lay ’neath the grate
“I did nothing to earn this grim fate.
There were not any trials.
They ignored my denials.”
He’s A Prisoner (here) of the State.