Collateral Damage: UV Zappers by Sterling Warner

 

Image / MEUM MARE

Collateral Damage: UV Zappers

My Dunga indoor bug zapper

sat like a blue moorish tower

it onion-shaped dome adorned 

with a pointed spire where led

spines flashed FLUO lights

tip to base in irregular intervals.

Glowing UV ray-like catnip to kittens

lure irksome creepy-crawlers and 

ravenous, aggravating, winged bugs

 

The insect monolith served as

landing pad, offered recreational

opportunities for flies, mosquitoes, gnats 

moths that traversed its horseshoe archways 

followed inviting, enticing flickers inside

put to rest forever in a zip-zap crematorium.

From terse spitter-spatters

longer lightening zaps sizzle, 

hiss, pop, and burst brightly

 

October sent Union, Washington, ice and snow 

blanketed October walkways, gardens,  and homes

sending ladybugs indoors seeking warmth for

hibernation; speckled ladybirds snuggled half-way

under ceiling molding in a line a foot long, dreaming

about spider mites, aphids, and nectar consumption.

Used to underleaf cohabitation

the crimson creatures grasp onto

stucco and wood for protection.

Some navigated below, hypnotized by Dunga’s 

bright essence, forcing their way into the tower’s

ribcage of illuminance, only to feel electricity

briefly zapping feet, clinging to outer shells, 

buzzing convulsively for three to five minutes 

forcing me daily to empty trays of fried ectoplasms. 

I marvel at glowing efficiency

bow my head, grieve at waste lady beetles never annoyed me. 

© Sterling Warner

Sterling Warner

Washington-based author, poet, and educator Sterling Warner is published in such magazines, journals, and anthologies as Verse-Virtual, Ekphrastic Review. Warner’s poetry/fiction includes Rags and Feathers, Without Wheels, ShadowCat, Edges, Memento Mori, Serpent’s Tooth, Flytraps: Poems, Cracks of Light: Pandemic Poetry & Fiction, Halcyon Days: Collected Fibonacci, Abraxas: Poems, Gunilla’s Garden: Poems (2025), and Masques: Flash Fiction & Short Stories.  He currently writes, hosts “virtual” poetry/fiction readings, and enjoys fishing along the Hood Canal.

Follow Feed the Holy

The Quiet Return by Carol Anne Johnson

Image / Hamid Tajik

The Quiet Return

There was a time I walked on shards—
each step a whisper of the past,
echoes clawing at my ribs,
a storm behind a smiling mask.

My foundation was shaken,
cracked by hands I couldn't stop,
by words that burrowed deep and cold,
like winter never meant to stop.

Time, with quiet fingers, sews
the fabric torn by younger pain.
And in the stillness, something grows—
a fragile root beneath the rain.

I learned to speak in softer tones
to the small, afraid-in-me,
to hold her hand through shadowed rooms,
and teach her what it means to be free.

Now dawn comes in gentler hues,
and breath no longer bears a fight.
I carry scars like ancient runes—
not curses now, but signs of light.

There’s strength in every trembling truth,
in tears I no longer deny.
And though the past still hums beneath,
I stand today. I don’t ask why.

Healing isn't clean or fast,
nor does it mean we must forget.
But I have walked through fire and ash—
I am rising. Not there yet—
but rising,
nonetheless.

© Carol Anne Johnson

Carol Anne Johnson is in her mid-40s. She is blind and was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder and complex PTSD. She is also a survivor of child abuse. She enjoys writing poetry and reading, walking, and volunteering. You can follow her on her blog, http://therapybits.com/.

Follow Feed the Holy

A CROWD by Devayani Anvekar

 

Image / Pille Kirsi

A CROWD

 

of like and unlike minds and thoughts, 

ways, taste, like ants march along a lengthy 

path cross hills. Foothills. High mountains. 

Steep valleys. Vast deserts. Barren lands. 

Crowded cities. Noisy towns. Abandoned 

desolated villages. Beside green lakes. 

Blue rivers. Calm seas. Roaring oceans. 

A lengthy life. A lengthy pilgrimage.

 

Each heaving carrying, bearing, heavy

burdens of disbeliefs or of beliefs ardent.

Obstinate. Faith in same God or a million

various Gods. Of one’s own liking or in

one’s own image.

 

In search of a path. A purpose. To move

on. Go on. Walk on. Feel whole. One

with all.

 

Not all. Everything you. For you.

You alone. All by yourself. Alone.

 

Lost.

 

Like a sole survivor. Winner. On an

immense island. 

Alone. 

With growing illusions, delusions. 

Wild  

despair. Enveloping darkness. 

Alone.

 

In search of company. 

A crowd. 

In search of Sun. Bright rays. Light.

 

Uncover lightness. Brightness.

 

Light, slow, floating hours. Days. Life. 

Time.  

 

Unburden self. Reveal an unburdened

mind.

© Devayani Anvekar

Devayani Anvekar

Devayani Anvekar is an illustrator and caricaturist of social and domestic issues. She lives in Goa, India. She writes poetry, fiction, and non-fiction prose when drawing fails to help her grasp human struggle. Her written work has appeared in 50-Word Stories, The Metaworker, and is forthcoming in The Genre Society and Witcraft. 

Follow Feed the Holy

Elegy for an Abandoned Kitten by Jason Ray Carney

 

Image / Hiếu Trọng

Elegy for an Abandoned Kitten

It is dark at the pavilion.
I hear you crying, plaintive, anger Mixed with fear,
Calling for your mother who cannot find you, Or is dead.
I follow the sound to a dark knot of grass,
And there shine the light:
A small orange kitten, hissing, spitting at The alien glow.
They have tried to feed you, But you do not eat solid food.
The tin can of food is untouched, Fly-blown nearby.
When I turn off my light, your hisses become A plaintive cry again,
As if you cannot decide if the darkness Is safer,
And your mother can hear you as long as You are in shadow.
I listen to you cry, hoarse, mewling,
And think about your short life,
Perhaps bathed by your mother’s tongue Just a month ago.
As I drive home at 80 miles per hour
Through the mist halo of my rental car's low beams, On Route 36, I try to call my wife to tell her I am afraid:

I had drunk a few beers, I am in an unfamiliar state On an unfamiliar road, and drowsy— Keep me awake. Talk to me.
But I am lying.
I am thinking of you, and of the darkness, And of the serpent Coiled across the field, who can hear Your plaintive calls,
And I am thinking of our cosmic darkness, On 36, all around, And my desperate need for my wife To pick up the phone. © Jason Ray Carney

Jason Ray Carney

Jason Ray Carney is a Senior Lecturer in Literature at Christopher Newport University. He is the author of Weird Tales of Modernity (McFarland, 2019) and a contributor to the Los Angeles Review of Books.

A Monday Morning Poem for Scooter by Carolyn S. Mahnke

 

Image/ Rufina Rusakova

A Monday Morning Poem for Scooter

This frog princess sniffs the delphinium,

while she listens to the deaf silence of the room.

Millennial monsters feed on

the impending demise of her moonlight.

Frightened, this small sleepy creature leaps

to pause above the pond of stagnant wisdom.

 Whimsical doubt lingers beneath the surface of

an ordinary dream…She reaches for coffee.

 

Yes coffee, butterscotch in color, in a green mug

with flowers of lavender, crocus and Queen Anne’s lace.

 As the last drop spills down the gullet, hazel eyes grasp

what is written in the bottom of the cup,  ‘Bee Kind’.

 

Her tongue flickers out to taste this message

…rolls it in the mouth and relays it to the mind in bullfrog

fashion, ribbet, ribbet, be kind to the old dog.

Yes, lead her out to pee and poo, in to drink and eat .

 

Before she goes back to sleep, massage the sweet

spot beneath her neck and the white one behind her

 coffee-colored ears, while giving drops she hates,

but the vet says she needs, one in each eye.

 

Wait 5 minutes for the antibiotic one, just in the right.

Whisper and croon words she understands through

touch and smell of kindness, though she does not hear

or see anything but light and darkness.

 

Thirteen trips around the sun, ninety-one, in dog years,

she stumbles to her pallet bed. Hunkering her head

in cushioned repose, she collapses and

sinks, totally relaxed in canine release.

 

Should I join her? Shall I follow her lead?

Or proceed with my week on this Monday

in June…too soon, but not soon enough for

touch and smell of kindness.

© Carolyn S. Mahnke

Carolyn S. Mahnke

Carolyn S. Mahnke is a registered nurse and retired Certified Diabetes Care and Education Specialist, living in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She loves gardening, mothering, “grand mothering”, quilting, walking, swimming, and writing. She has written and published four poetry books: Howl at the Moon and Tell Outrageous Truth, Howl from the Center of Being,  Howling from Senior Moments, and Second Story View. She enters her 80th decade with energy and enthusiasm, nourished and encouraged by friends and family, especially by Nadia Colburn’s online writing community.

Follow Feed the Holy

As Blue Fades by Robert Okaji

 

Image/ Chris Munnik

As Blue Fades

Which defines you best, a creaking lid or the light-turned flower?

The coffee’s steam or smoke wafting from your hand.

Your bowls color my shelves; I touch them daily.

Sound fills their bodies with memory.

The lighter’s click invokes your name.

And the stepping stones to nowhere, your current address.

If the moon could breathe would its breath flavor our nights?

I picture a separate one above your clouded island.

The dissipating blue in filtered light.

Above the coral. Above the space your ashes should share.

Where the boats rise and fall, like chests, like the waning years.

Like a tide carrying me towards yesterday’s reef.

Or the black-tailed gull spinning in the updraft.

Originally published in Underfoot, and included in Okaji's first full-length collection, Our Loveliest Bruises (3: A Taos Press, 2025)

© Robert Okaji

Robert Okaji

Two years ago, Robert Okaji was diagnosed with late-stage metastatic lung cancer, which he found annoying. But thanks to modern science, he's still living in Indianapolis with his wife, poet Stephanie L. Harper, stepson, cat, and dog. Recent publications include Our Loveliest Bruises (3: A Taos Press, 2025) and His Windblown Self (Broadstone Books, 2025).

Follow Feed the Holy