The Assassination Of Jfk Poem by Martin Ward

Where were you
when the news came through
of the assassination of JFK?

I came home from school
and heard the news
in the early evening.

It was difficult
to eat my food
with the pictures.

Vivid in black and white;
hazy, flickering pictures
from the new world

beamed across
the big pond, as
Millicent Martin sang.

I did not know him,
yet somehow
I knew him:

spewing shock
like a friend
killed in a car crash.

Episodic memory
burned into my brain
and replayed

involuntarily in flashes,
sometimes amended
to colour, now.

The years have painted
the picture, but
the original remains.