Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

the day JFK was assassinated I was thirteen
what I remember very clearly on that day
we were told in English class what happened
I'm not sure what I felt when I heard the news
It was not like anything I felt before
I think I felt confused more then sad
no, it was a feeling of the floor being pulled
out from under me, like my whole world shifted
like my childhood just ended, and a kind of shock
that the world was not the place I thought it was
but I already kinda felt that way in some ways
I remember going to a place in the Mohave desert
around that time called Giant Rock where they
held UFO conventions, and I began thinking about
UFO's and around that time I identified with beatniks
but surfers were also the big thing where I lived
surf music, I wasn't that much into rock and roll yet
that would not happen until the Beatles came to America
but I was into jazz that I heard on TV as a kid
like the Peter Gunn theme, which I thought was cool
yes I think after that day John Kennedy was killed
I felt that America was not the place I thought it was
my child view was shattered, and my beatnik tendency
was cemented, somewhere around that time I saw
myself being a poet in the future, and playing bongos

I was in 8th grade
science class
we were planning a trip
to the Boston Museum of Science
the principal
Mr Willis
appeared in the doorway
beckoning
to Mr Lamella
we didn't know
just found ourselves At Ease
shifted
talked
giggled
then Mr Lamella returned
gray
told us there'd be no trip
that the President had been shot
in the head
was not expected to live
we sat dead still
and not because
The Teacher
stood before us
but something much bigger
world events
had come to Walpole NH
a tsunami
of uncertainty
washing away our innocence
in a wave
of original sin