The weather will be
grey and weary as an old sailor
sweeping the decks of complaint.
That weather kicking up fangs
white as Jack London’s seadogs
steers a ship heavy with allusion
to the whaling grounds
off the Galapagos where the old bull
sank the Ann Alexander inspiring Melville
to seize his pen from among the wrecked spars.
How the ambergris of his imagination
raged from the Grand Banks to the Azores.
where Queequeg posed with a harpoon
and Starbuck cautioned
against the fearless man
who endangers us all
 
Joan Colby has published widely in journals such as Poetry, Atlanta Review, South Dakota Review,etc. Awards include two Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards, an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Literature. She has published 14 books including  Selected Poems” from FutureCycle Press which received the 2013 FutureCycle Prize and “Ribcage” from Glass Lyre Press which has been awarded the 2015 Kithara Book Prize.Colby is also an associate editor of Kentucky Review and FutureCycle Press.