'That Is So Not So! ' Poem by Jim Boone

I shrieked at my co-workers at
Hoffman’s Men’s Wear on
November 22,1963.

I had been in love with
John F. and Jacqueline Kennedy
Since they appeared on the
Television screens of my consciousness.

The movie-star handsome senator who
Became President: A Catholic yet,
With moxy, new focus and dick-tates;
The most charismatic President
The United States of America
Would ever know.

Dead? Dead? Not possible!
I just saw the life and glow
Of this beautiful couple pass me
In a big black Lincoln limousine
Convertible on Commerce Street,
From my vantage point In the
Heart of downtown Dallas.

Dead? Dead? Not possible.
Then the realization, freeze-frame
Shut-down, happened that would last.

“What are you doing the rest of your life? ”

Impossible, yet true. I will never, ever
Feel safe or whole again. Don’t want
To live in a world that would kill
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, US President.

Dead? Dead? Oh my God! Where were You? !

“Don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a
Spot, for happily ever-aftering that’s known
As Camelot.” Camelot. Never again.

I knew nothing about a ‘Texas School Book
Depository’ before this dreadful day; the
Most devastating day in my history.
I would never speak Lee Harvey Oswald’s
Name again except when reading this in
Future years: Five, ten, twenty, thirty, fifty.
Then my sorrow and anguish will be done.

Theories, theories, theories that do not matter.
The most significant human being of all time
Had been killed by one of the most insignificant
Weasels of all time. What could be will not. Ever.
President Kennedy’s death would overshadow his
Significance throughout history. A hole in time.

“Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, creeps
in this petty pace to the last syllables of recorded
time, and all our yesterdays have paved the way
to dusty death”. A hopeful, exciting future was
Snuffed out on November 22,1963, as far as
I was concerned. I will never, ever fully recover.

We had it all. We were on the right track. Bam!

1963

“Nobody knows”... and nobody who was alive
Then has forgotten where we were, and what
Each of us felt on that beautiful, sunny Texas day.
It is fitting that fifty years later, it is a cold,
Rainy day in Dallas, Texas, USA, Earth.

2013