ANKLE MONITORS

by Phyllis Wax

Summertime—

and we bare shoulders,

legs, ankles, feet

except

this summer

thousands of ankles

are not bare.

It doesn’t matter

if they’ve followed

the rules, filled out the forms,

gone to all the appointments. 

It doesn’t matter

if they’ve paid their taxes,

committed no crimes,

volunteered at the local school.

They can still be snatched,

handcuffed and whisked away. 

And, if they’re lucky enough to be released,

they are bare-ankled no more.

The monitors strapped to those ankles

are meant to track and stigmatize,

remove the bare joy of summer.

Phyllis Wax writes in Milwaukee, where she observes the goings-on of the country and the world. She has read in coffee houses, bars, libraries and on the radio, and has participated in poet/fiber artist collaborations. Among the journals in which her work has appeared are Gyroscope Review, Writers Resist, Jerry Jazz Musician, Rise Up Review, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Wordpeace, The New Verse News, Naugatuck River Review, Your Daily Poem, Feral.

CONUNDRUM

by Phyllis Wax

Few crimes carry
the death penalty.
Why do so many police 
summarily impose it?

Phyllis Wax writes in Milwaukee, where she observes the goings-on of the country and the world. She has read in coffee houses, bars, libraries and on the radio, and has participated in poet/fiber artist collaborations. Among the journals in which her work has appeared are Gyroscope Review, Writers Resist, Jerry Jazz Musician, Rise Up Review, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Wordpeace, The New Verse News, Naugatuck River Review, Your Daily Poem, Feral.

MICHAEL TILSON THOMAS, ODE TO JOY AT TANGLEWOOD, AUGUST 2022

by Phyllis Wax

 

 

 Michael Tilson Thomas 1944-2026

 

 

Aggressive glioblastoma                                       
rampant weed                                     
slashed                                                 
hacked
but no guarantees                          
 
Still, there he was
energetically coaxing the best  
from the musicians
 
luring them boldly                                    
through the gardens of music
gardens growing wild and free
 
sharing beauty                 
and terror
with the audience
 
who rose
in homage                 
at the end
stood applauding
for over six minutes
 
Unseen
in the background
that noxious weed
still crept 

 

 

Phyllis Wax writes in Milwaukee, where she observes the goings-on of the country and the world and is being cured of her delusions. She has read in coffee houses, bars, libraries and on the radio, and has participated in poet/fiber artist collaborations. Among the journals in which her work has appeared are Gyroscope Review, Writers Resist, Jerry Jazz Musician, Rise Up Review, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Wordpeace, The New Verse News, Naugatuck River Review, Your Daily Poem, Feral. 

REMINDERS

by Phyllis Wax

Israeli settlers beat a Palestinian man in the occupied West Bank, stripped him naked, tied his arms and legs and then zip-tied his penis, he, his family members and another witness said on Wednesday. “I thought I was going to die,” the man, Suhaib Abualkebash (above), a 29-year-old shepherd, told The New York Times. “I thought this was the end.” Photo by Afif Amireh.

Even as ghosts their bones

are visible: ribs, backbones,

sticks of arms and legs.

But the occupiers in the West Bank,

the army in Gaza,

do not see the ghosts

of their ancestors,

do not hear their rattling bones

or their ghostly admonishments

not to duplicate the cruelty done to them,

seem deaf to the idea that never again

means not to anyone.

Phyllis Wax writes in Milwaukee, where she observes the goings-on of the country and the world and is being cured of her delusions. She has read in coffee houses, bars, libraries and on the radio, and has participated in poet/fiber artist collaborations. Among the journals in which her work has appeared are Gyroscope Review, Writers Resist, Jerry Jazz Musician, Rise Up Review, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Wordpeace, The New Verse News, Naugatuck River Review, Your Daily Poem, Feral.

IN MOSCOW

by Phyllis Wax

Natalia Samsonova says she imagines the muffled screams of those trapped under the rubble, the fire and smell of smoke, the grief of the mother who lost her husband and infant child beneath the ruins of the building in Dnipro bombed by Russia. She imagines being unable to breathe. That is why she is here, at a statue to the Ukrainian poet Lesya Ukrainka, a largely unknown monument tucked away among Moscow’s brutalist apartment blocks that has hosted a furtive anti-war memorial at a time when few in Russia dare protest against the conflict. PHOTO: A woman holds a placard reading ‘Ukraine is not our enemy, they are our brothers’ in front of a monument to Ukrainian poet Lesya Ukrainka in Moscow. Photograph: Reuters —The Guardian, January 28, 2023

On this poor, indigent ground

I shall sow flowers of flowing colors;

I shall sow flowers even amidst the frost,

And water them with my bitter tears.

—Lesya Ukrainka

Silently                    

they lay their flowers

before the poet’s statue.              

Alone

or in twos

they stand mute.

Thunderous      

in the silence

is their sorrow

their horror

and shame

at what Russia is doing.

Phyllis Wax watches the world from Milwaukee. Much of her poetry comes from her observations. She has been published in numerous journals and anthologies, in print and online.

ETHIOPIAN DÉJÀ VU

by Phyllis Wax

Despite mass starvation occurring in Ethiopia's northern region of Tigray, senior international aid officials are tiptoeing around declaring a famine nearly a year after the civil war erupted. Photo: This is one of the malnourished children being treated at Ayder Hospital this week —BBC, October 16, 2021

We’ve seen them before,                             

living skeletons,

bones like knobby sticks,

 

carrying children too weak

to brush flies

from their faces,

 

so hungry

they’ve been eating

leaves.

 

A hooded figure

strides among them,

his sharp scythe ready.

 

Trucks with life-

saving food and medicine

have been blocked.

 

Our feet seem stuck            

in concrete. 

Social issues are a major focus of Milwaukee poet Phyllis Wax. Her work has appeared on The New Verse News in the past, as well as in numerous other journals and anthologies, both online and in print.

IT'S THE EXOTIC, THE FOREIGN...

by Phyllis Wax

who rouse fear—                                                           

the Egyptian cobra, the black mamba,                                                  

the pit vipers of Pakistan and Afghanistan—                                        

and nativists lump the unfamiliar benign 

with these toxic snakes, want to fence them all out. 

                                                         

But what about the homegrown “patriots”—the domestic

side-armed sidewinding rattler, chattering and clattering           

its venomous views, sowing discord wherever  it chooses?

What about the skin-headed southern cottonmouth

with its deceptive languid accent and aggressive

lashing out?  The klanned coral snake, venomous,         

yet anonymous?  The paranoid tea-                                

stained copperhead?  The credulous shrug them off,                        

consider them crazies,

not dangerous species

to be monitored and tracked.

They slither from under rocks and brush piles                            

in the western hills, cluster in nests in lowland swamps,

ooze out of slimy mics all over the homeland.

The willfully oblivious ignore them—              

even when they rear back and strike.                                                                                                     

Phyllis Wax writes in Milwaukee, WI, where she is now watching in horror as the homegrown snakes are all slithering out at once. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, both online and in print.

HIT 'EM AGAIN

by Phyllis Wax





Frenzied spectators
shoulder to shoulder
in the stadium, the coliseum,                                            
Hit ‘em again,
harder, harder.
                        Blood sport—
gleaming helmets, shields,
spears, fists, muscled strong-men,
beasts—and the roar
harder, harder.

Pass flasks,
stomp, stomp
in togas
or in team jerseys.
Hit ‘em again.

Week after week
spectators demand            
extreme combat,
harder, harder,
aggression no armor
protects against.                              

Combatants exit arenas    
to cheers    or jeers,
sometimes bloodied, limping
   
to reap the whirlwind years ahead
      self-medicating
                        brawling
              stumbling
                        through     a        fog
                               crippled
                addled.

Monday nights, in front of the
flickering lights, I think about it.


Phyllis Wax writes in Milwaukee on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan.  Among the anthologies and journals in which her poetry has appeared are Rhino, The Widows’ Handbook,Birdsong, Spillway, Peacock Journal, Surreal Poetics, Naugatuck River Review, TheNewVerse.News, Portside, and Star 82 Review. She does not watch football or boxing. Reach her at poetwax38(at)gmail.com.

WALLS

by Phyllis Wax

Cartoon by R.J. Matson

are already being built.                  

It’s up to us
to chip at mortar,
remove bricks,
pull out pickets,
snip wire.

It’s up to us
to speak to people,                  
look them in the eye,
extend a hand,
smile.

We can undo
faster
than he can build.


Social issues are a major focus of Milwaukee poet Phyllis Wax.  Her work appears in numerous anthologies and journals, among them The Widows’ Handbook, Birdsong, Spillway, Peacock Journal, Surreal Poetics, Naugatuck River Review, TheNewVerse.News, Portside, Star 82 Review.  When she’s not writing you might find her escorting at a local abortion clinic.  She can be reached at: poetwax38[at]gmail.com.

DEJA VU

by Phyllis Wax

'WORST FAMINE IN 100 YEARS' COULD SEE 13 MILLION PEOPLE STARVE IF SAUDI-LED COALITION KEEPS BOMBING YEMEN: U.N.” —Newsweek, October 15, 2018. The United States supplies bombs and other support for the war that’s killed civilians and is creating famine. Children in Yemen are acutely malnourished. Those who survive will often be stunted for the rest of their lives, physically and mentally. Photo Credit: Hammadi Issa/Associated Press via The New York Times, September 26, 2018.

Some of us remember the photos
when the camps were liberated

skeletons
lethargic from lack of food
legs and arms just fleshless bones
ribs perceptible without x-rays                       
                                                                     
In Yemen
it’s the children—
big-eyed
visibly starving                           
                                                     
pinned in place
by warheads
made in the USA
targeting markets
funerals    schools

Social issues are a major focus of Milwaukee poet Phyllis Wax. Among the anthologies and journals her work has appeared in are Portside, Obama-Mentum, TheNewVerse.News, Surreal Poetics, Ars Medica, Naugatuck River Review, The Five-Two, Star 82 Review and Mobius.  When she’s not writing you might find her escorting at a local abortion clinic. She can be reached at poetwax38 (at) gmail.com.

PENNY ARCADE

by Phyllis Wax




Side        to        side                     
he     bounces
a shiny pinball
                ricocheting
bumper        to        bumper

We can’t take our eyes away

Around him they frantically
work the flippers                     
try to discreetly jiggle the table             
nudge      bump       nudge
but in the end he glances off
one surface        angles
onto another   I’m the best,
believe me   as he bounces from                 
a red bumper           the best
              as he hits a wall                                         
not in control, but neither is                           
anyone else

They keep trying                                       

hoping not to set off                         
a flashing TILT  TILT                                                   
GAME OVER
with yet another insider                   
bounced 
so sad

Phyllis Wax writes in Milwaukee on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan. Among the anthologies and journals in which her poetry has appeared are: The Widows’ Handbook, Birdsong, Spillway, Peacock Journal, Surreal Poetics, Naugatuck River Review, TheNewVerse.News, Portside, Star 82 Review. A Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize nominee, she has read in coffee houses, bars, libraries and on the radio. Her work has been exhibited with art quilts and weavings in a variety of venues around the state of Wisconsin as part of four poet/fiber artist collaborations. 

POLICE VS. BLACK MEN

by Phyllis Wax

A responding officer [in El Cajon, California] fatally shot Mr. [Alfred] Olango after he pulled an object from his pocket, the police said. On Wednesday night, the police identified the object as a vape smoking device with a silvery cylinder the police said “was pointed toward the officer.” —The New York Times, September 28, 2016

We’ve done a good job
keeping them apart –
segregated schools,
segregated housing.
No wonder each looks
at the other as the other.
No wonder they fear
each other.  No wonder
the finger pulls the trigger                
so easily


Social issues are a major focus of Milwaukee poet Phyllis Wax.  Among the anthologies and journals her work has appeared in are Portside, TheNewVerse.News, Surreal Poetics, Ars Medica, Naugatuck River Review, Your Daily Poem, Star 82 Review. When she’s not writing you might find her escorting at a local abortion clinic.  She can be reached at poetwax38[at]gmail.com.

MEN OF COLOR

by Phyllis Wax

Image source: The Sentencing Project

Prison has replaced the plantation                

Pick him up for loitering                              
Handcuff him for a driving offense              
Jail him when he can’t pay his fine              
Harass, kick ass so he knows his place        

Young men rant in solitary
Molder for penny-ante crimes        
Or felonies they didn’t commit
In private prisons
Profitable enterprises
The public chooses not to see
                                                     
The bullet has replaced the rope      

New York, Saginaw                        
North Charleston, Cleveland
Sanford, Milwaukee

Amidou Diallo, Trayvon Martin
Walter Scott, Dontre Hamilton
Tamir Rice, Milton Hall

Black bodies in their own foyers
Chalked on sidewalks
Slumped in stairwells            
Bodies sprawled in city streets

Cheap lives, death at a discount


Phyllis Wax writes on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, WI.  Her work has appeared in many anthologies and literary journals, both online and print, among them Out of Line, New Verse News, Verse Wisconsin, Ars Medica, Naugatuck River Review, Your Daily Poem. When she’s not writing you might find her escorting at a local abortion clinic.

UNACCOMPANIED MINORS

by Phyllis Wax

Detainees sleep in a holding cell at a U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing facility in Brownsville, Texas June 18, 2014.
--REUTERS/Eric Gay/Pool 

fifty thousand in less than a year
scarred, scared
exhausted
stomachs gnawing

to escape violence
there’s no hiding from at home,
in the neck between the Americas,
surviving the trek
through endless Mexico
and now

they sleep on a warehouse floor
in Nogales
sprawled in
the myriad positions
children sleep in—
snuggled to a sibling
arm or leg
overlapping
flopped supine, mouth agape—
detainees of a resistant state

The soft sighs of their breathing            
warm the cold cement they lie on

while lawmakers want to
send in the National Guard

Phyllis Wax muses on the news and politics from a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, WI.  She's been widely published, recently in The Widows' Handbook:  Poetic Reflections on Grief and Survival from Kent State University Press.  When she's not writing you might find her escorting at a local women's clinic.

AMERICAN KGB

by Phyllis Wax

We who are under surveillance
in more ways than we know
tonight notice the stealthy moon      
as it slips behind the trees.

Hiding is useless.  That moon
could be an eye.  In these woods our whispers
might be seized by murmurous leaves.
Only handwritten notes are safe
if burned or swallowed after they are read.

One is not paranoid
if one is really being followed.


Phyllis Wax muses on the news and politics from a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, WI.  She's been widely published, recently in The Widows' Handbook:  Poetic Reflections on Grief and Survival from Kent State University Press.  When she's not writing you might find her escorting at a local women's clinic.

DONETSK IN EASTERN UKRAINE

by Phyllis Wax

Ukraine's rebel movement was plunged into crisis on Thursday, when pro-Russian fighters backed by armoured personnel carriers seized the movement's headquarters in Donetsk and destroyed the barricades protecting it. The surprise move by a group called the Vostok Battalion, a heavily armed rebel unit that has been involved in fighting against the Ukrainian army, sparked speculation about an internal coup within the fractious rebel movement. There was also speculation that the move could have been an attempt by the leadership to purge undesirable elements with the Donetsk Peoples' Republic. Key rebel leaders, who were not in the building when the fighters arrived, insisted they were still in control and that they had even ordered the operation. "This is a police action directed against looters," a rebel source close to Alexander Borodai, the prime minister of the self-declared republic, said on Thursday afternoon. "There is no coup. Everything is under control." --Roland Oliphant in Donetsk, The Telegraph, May 29 2014

Not a tractor on this farm field
but a turreted tank,
a lumpy blue blanket and
close by a khaki tarp
sprouting a clenched hand
at one end.  All around
a new spring crop
is pushing through.


Phyllis Wax muses on the news and politics from a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, WI.  She's been widely published, recently in The Widows' Handbook:  Poetic Reflections on Grief and Survival from Kent State University Press.  When she's not writing you might find her escorting at a local women's clinic.

MYSTERY PLANE

by Phyllis Wax

They keep searching the seas:
the Bay of Bengal, the Gulf of Thailand,
the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean.
Might as well look in Lake Michigan.

No terrorists on board, no hijackers.
Two good pilots—a grandfather and
a young man looking forward to marriage.
Only good people (ask the relatives,
wailing and weeping), a planeload
of concentrated goodness
from Asia, Australia, Europe
and North America.  Where
could they possibly be?

I know.  A night flight.
Two pilots, heads in the clouds.                        
One gives a nod, turns                   
off the transponder.  The plane
rises to 45,000 feet, 60,000, higher—
approaches the glowing face of God.         


Phyllis Wax muses on the news and politics from a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, WI.  She's been widely published, most recently in  The Widows' Handbook:  Poetic Reflections on Grief and Survival from Kent State University Press.