Cinema Verité, 1963

President John F. Kennedy in a limousine on Main Street in Dallas moments before his assassination on Nov. 22, 1963. Also in the presidential limousine were his wife, Jacqueline, seated next to him, and in front, Texas Governor John Connally, and his wife, Nellie. Photograph by Walt Cisco/Dallas Morning News.

In VistaVision that summer, we first glimpsed

evil in the skies when Melanie Daniels, gliding

across Bodega Bay in a rented motorboat —

attractive, flirtatious, confident ”“ was suddenly

attacked by a gull, a gash to the head

right there smack in middle of the day,

bright and blue.

 

Reacting, she touched the wound, saw blood

and, as disbelief turned down the corners of her mouth,

we felt something very awful and out of our control

was really going to happen.

 

And it did, just before Thanksgiving, this time

in an eight-millimeter home movie strip when

President Kennedy, drifting in a motorcade

through downtown Dallas ”“ handsome, aglow, confident —

was suddenly shot, the very first bullet clear through his neck

right there smack in the middle of the day,

bright and blue.

 

Reacting, he clutched his throat and, as disbelief

turned down the corners of his mouth, we closed our eyes

afraid to look just like in the movies knowing what the next bullet,

seconds away, would do.

 

It hasn”™t been the same since devil”™s wings

filled the skies. Like Hitchcock”™s survivors, we drive

down an endlessly abandoned road where cold-blooded

eyes follow our fearful journey, as if we are all moving targets.

(A note from Georgette Gouveia: I”™ve worked with publicist-freelance writer Frank Pagani on many stories, but it”™s only in recent years that I”™ve discovered he”™s also a fine poet, often writing on topics of the day. This year marks the 60thanniversary of Alfred Hitchcock”™s movie “The Birds” and of President John F. Kennedy”™s assassination. Pagani finds a different kind of menace in each, reminding us that part of the beauty of art is that it”™s not real: )