POEM: “Officials Are Optimistic He Has Been Killed”

—Radio news report, after a surgical strike in northwestern Pakistan               

By Gilbert Allen

Driving, I barely hear—because
on Route 291,
beside the Greenville cemetery,
this afternoon’s big wind

has filled the world before my eyes
with real plastic roses.
A winter garden? Lost parade?
Whatever one supposes,

I guess—gas on tires, tires
over the rainbow roil
of slick colors, on striped asphalt.
Oil on oil on oil

on oil. It used to be
alive. This potpourri.

Gilbert Allen has lived in northern Greenville County since 1977. He is the Bennette E. Geer Professor of Literature Emeritus at Furman University and a member of The South Carolina Academy of Authors. “Officials Are Optimistic” is from his sixth collection of poems, Catma (Measure Press, 2014).