You can use cli_wallet to connect to a public websocket server, for example (https://steemit.com/steemws/@jesta/steem-ws-the-public-steem-api-cluster):

./cli_wallet -s wss://node.steem.ws -H 127.0.0.1:8091 --rpc-http-allowip 127.0.0.1

Then connect to the cli_wallet with your own program.

You can also use piston (https://piston.readthedocs.io/en/stable/).