Who Killed the President
Who killed the president?
It was a fine forenoon when the pilot left the ship in Wilhelmshaven
in Curacao, bound for Maracaibo, Venezuela
the sea was like a mirror at ease being back on the ocean
Then came the news John Kennedy has been shot and brought
to the hospital, and half an hour later, a bulletin the president is dead.
For us, it was a profound shock he represented the future, young
glamorous, with a beautiful wife, we loved him like an older brother
we could look up to; peace corps and peace in the world.
Who had killed him? Our first thought was the doing of the Russians
who have the misfortune of being the harbinger of all ills in the world,
When Lee Oswald was caught, we learned he had a Russian wife
we’re not so sure could be he acted at the behest of the Mafia.
I seem to remember something about the FBI being involved, but that
is, I think, something I read later and added the story to my memory.
I picture Oswald with a beat-up face, looking triumphantly at the camera
a loser with limited capability, dreaming of doing something great
a failure in life who had gone to Russia to work at a factory and probably
disliked by his fellow workers, who thought him haughty and arrogant.
Three things have had an effect on me, my mother’s death when
I was far from home and cried alone; the Kennedy murder and learning
The last Tasmanian Tiger was killed in 1936, and there will never be
another tiger roaming in the woods.
It struck me that when I die, there will be no part of me carrying my genes
into the long future.
On a screen, I saw Jack Ruby, kill Lee and wondered why it was easy
was there something I didn’t get, a secret that shall be known one day.
As it is, Oswald was a crack shot trained in the USA’s army; as for now,
I will have to accept this as a truth, if not the final truth.
Copyright © Jan Hansen | Year Posted 2023
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