Thursday, August 10, 2017

THE PANEL

by Joan Colby





“CNN dismisses Jeffrey Lord after Nazi tweet,
instantly upgrades panel discussions.”
—Erik Wemble, The Washington Post, August 10, 2017



Grid of heads.
Former congressman. Aide to a
President twice removed.
Retired General. Snarky blonde.
Outspoken Latina. Ex-chairman
Of a political party. Sports
Figure. Billionaire. Secretary of
Defense in a former administration.
Familiars of talk show hosts who moderate
Or instigate. Night time birds
Pecking and screeching. Disembodied
Heads stuffed with opinions.
The once-was or might-have-been.
Solemn or verbose.
Each day’s outrage invokes
The squawking panel.
A zoo of exes. A new career
For reincarnated experts.
Patchwork quilt of somebodys
Revived to quote or quibble.
Opening their addictive
Testimonies. Sphinx.
Cassandra. Sage. Ghost.


Joan Colby has published widely in journals such as Poetry, Atlanta Review, South Dakota Review, The Spoon River Poetry Review, New York Quarterly, the new renaissance, Grand Street, Epoch, and Prairie Schooner. Awards include two Illinois Arts Council Literary Awards, Rhino Poetry Award, the new renaissance Award for Poetry, and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship in Literature. She is the editor of Illinois Racing News, and lives on a small horse farm in Northern Illinois. She has published 11 books including The Lonely Hearts Killers and How the Sky Begins to Fall (Spoon River Press), The Atrocity Book (Lynx House Press), Dead Horses and Selected Poems (FutureCycle Press), and Properties of Matter (Aldrich Press). Colby is also an associate editor of Kentucky Review and FutureCycle Press.