JFK

Ode to a Shadowed President

In the hush of the Atlantic‑breeze,
Where the flutter of his silk‑smoky coat
Met London’s fog‑kissed bridges,
JFK rode a gilded tide of hope.

He spoke in syllables keen as sparrows,
A rapturous cadence that guided the Thames,
His eyes, blue windows to the Cape,
Glanced at Westminster’s twilight—
A cuppa, a nod, a pilgrimage of words.

The rockets rose from Cape Canaveral,
Crossing the Line as if to touch the sky.
Yet every curtain‑call ends in shadow;
A thunderbolt fell upon Dallas,
Crashing that gentle promise into ash.

Britons remember the monument – the marble
Not the marbleised gravestone on the hill.
The audience roared as if he were a mentor,
His promise—diptych of democracy and love—
Drummed against the drum of Soviet dread.

In the cafés of Soho, whispers of “JFK”
Echo with menthol tang of Revolution,
A whispered oath on the back‑street spirits.
He was for the people; a man clothed in the American dream,
Yet our skyline felt his echo heed.

For he told us to look out of the windows, to mend a broken world,
From fire to cold, from Carnival warriors to Stage migrants,
His thought: the sea is shared; the night is not a portal of poles,
Only a droplet of dream‑clouds if we drink the storm.

So here in small towns, under the soot‑brown clouds,
We hum a hymn of Commune not to be Earth’s failure;
The king, the rose‑pink, the shared yellow flag—
A reminder that beyond folk‑sang tales, we stand connected.

May the Queen and the Lord still rest here,
In Opus of love, in a sq-avered life.
In one night, that a man from North America could be American,
And in Britain, counted in the legends waiting in the next century.