by Kevin Nusser

Heaven lasts four minutes
the duration of hyperactivity
from the oxygen-deprived brain
this is my four-minute stroll

It opens with me beside the bathtub
washing Sarah’s hair, she is 6 years old
I’ve used too much shampoo to get extra bubbles
and they are running down the wall above Sarah’s hand

“Ah, little buggy, it looks like snow” I say as the bubbles creep down
“Oh no it doesn’t” she says and her hand jumps around dancing
until the bubbles cover her hand/little buggy
“Oh no! I’m blind!” little buggy yells, we are both laughing

Now I’m 10, my brothers and I have socks on our hands
because we’re playing Rock’em Sock’em robots
the socks slow the blisters forming on our hands

I’m back to being 47
Dad and I are floating down the Santiam
I’m 45, Mom and me are celebrating
our birthdays at a Spirit Mountain buffet

I’m in Hawaii on a beach at Waimanalo with Susan
after I proposed and she said yes
she takes a photo of me splashing around in the water
with just my bare butt showing, I’m a great white

I’m 14 and sitting beside Grandpa Kasper in church
listening to his monotone singing
I’m 28 and have my nose stuck to Grandma May’s window
I can see her sitting in her easy chair smiling
I’m 13 and eating a big breakfast at Grandma Marian’s house
Grandpa Harold is talking about the “God-Damned Government”

I’m 28 and flying over LA with Ed, my father-in-law
Susan is sitting beside me grinning
I’m 45 and body diving with Sarah in Molokai
Joanne and Susan are waving at us from the beach

Susan and I are driving from LA to State College on our honeymoon
we’re taking turns reading “The Stand” and camping
we stopped at Jeff’s house and I’m teaching Drew to burp

I’m 47 eating at the cheesecake factory for mom and dad’s 50th
Doug and his family is there, someone pulling painfully on my mustache

I’m 24 and am driving my Harley Davidson along the gorge
and I am laughing cause I just killed a robin with my head
I’m 23, I’ve just jumped out of an airplane
and I am yelling for the parachute to open, it does and it is so silent

I’m 41 and on a camping trip with Sarah and Susan
a storm wind picks the tent up before I had a chance to hammer it down
Sarah is inside laughing as the tent is picked up and falls on its side

The last image is when I’m 33
Susan and I just got home with baby Sarah
there is a sudden downpour outside
the rain is so loud as it comes down in waves

Now it is silent

I am at peace

by Tabor Elisabeth Flickinger

The spine is built of butterflies;
Each spreads its wings upon a slice
Of sky stained myelin-blue.

When trapped, extracted, scrutinized,
The mottled pinion shows its scales’
Designs of subtle hue

As tinted nerve cell bodies make
The eyelets of the checkerspots
Of caught Nymphalinae.

Meticulous collectors keep
Their beauties under glass, peer through
A lens at their display.

Within each slide-observer’s spine,
Live butterflies hold council, swarm
Together, wild and free.

Quick twitches of their beating wings
Stir currents, raised aloft on drafts
Of electricity.

by Nykki B.

You are O!
she comments, as I pass her by
So pretty pregnant today.
Blossomed
they say, with a smile.
You have a sparkle.
Perhaps some women are made
to blossom
for naked silhouette pictures
empire waists
Pastel print jumpers
Not I.
Gravid, I am –
half-moon heavy,
full and round.
There is weight in me,
continents of curve and drift
a topography of breast
belly
thigh
Oceans within, wet
salt and dark
a tidal flux,
And deeply life,
its reptilian shift
moving against the primeval
I.

by MJS

the sunlight came in through a measurable door
that opened on water and danced at the shore
the beams were but particles I caught in my gaze
that turned and returned in the form of great waves
it’s a certain uncertainty, a past made pluperfect
for what had transpired led to different verdicts
an absolute fuzzy, a gray apparition
indeterminate forms, a quantum perdition
if “a” is not ” b” that is all fine and dandy
when “a” is not “a” I reach for the brandy
for Science is not, at it’s ultimate core
a place where the facts become metaphor
where meaning meanders, where evidence flounders
where logic and reason are left to sand-pounders
results must be tested! beware of rank sophistry!
and though life is elegant there’s no testing poetry!
unless, to be fair, you have walked on that path
where Euclid and Escher take turns with the math
where Alice descends with animals feral
and dodges the facts laid out by olde Carroll
but I fear that I stray from the points on the compass
and lessons are tossed as we frolic and rumpus
Science, dear Science is not weakened in light
nor does it seek ridiculous fights
can you imagine, when sitting with friends
picking a conflict with Spinoza’s lens?
or shaking a fist at the stars and the moon
while performing autopsies on the cat and the spoon?
subject and object, the yin and the yang
went out with Einstein and came in with a bang
but where to go now, in theory and thought?
and what is the point, when surrounded with rot?
that is the secret, that is the glory!
when faced with the lie to give lie to the story!
and seek not to win in a joust with a fool
the subject and object are not in a duel
Science is not circumscribed by the narrow
and space will but bend the straightest of arrows
subject and object, particle, wave
the ultimate truth or a game ‘fore the grave?
you are a particle, you are a wave
nothing is spent for nothing is saved!
and if you are anxious, if the floor starts to give
fear not the uncertain, it’s how we all live!

by David Lewis

Banging, clammering, frosted glass, muffled shouts
Beside me white wraiths give comfort
“We have the answer to World Peace”
No way to share, then ….

Nothing

Black sausages with red faces swaying
Rearing up to overwhelm
Purple clad person floats stage left
Disappears to the right…

Silence

Coloured orbs float around me,
Chamber filled with people
Gun pointed at me
A scuffle, a shot…

Blackness

Afar, red car draws up to a tower
Zoom in to follow driver
Round and round we climb
He jumps, I follow…

Flying

Earth races away from me
Whoosh
Halt
Behold awesome blue sapphire

Peace

Eyes open to
Chained by tubes and leads
Purple nurse greets me
“Hello” she says

And the work begins to get out of Intensive Care

Author’s note: “I am trying to communicate some of the experience when I was unconscious in ITU after a respiratory arrest. Three weeks in medical coma before awaking. The events still affect me and I hope my humble offering goes some way to improve our understanding of what it is like to be hallucinating while to all appearances one is unconscious.”

by Elise LeQuire

The cry of it can rend the night
Or double pulse rates in a flash,
Its orange sheen, its whirling light,
The hearts it holds after a crash.

But listen, should the day approach
When you must stay and I must leave,
Think of me as that shrieking coach
That speeds away; oh how I’ll grieve

To hold a disembodied heart
And leave your side; oh how I’ll moan
At losing you, no surgeon’s art
Can keep a heart alive alone.

Still you will hear me rave and scream
Announcing horror in the night,
And I’ll be in each siren dream
And in each whirling warning light.

by Simon Hamid

I trembled very gently inside,
When the old man with a stroke,
Told me “thank you” in his own language.

He didn’t know if I understood,
But he said it anyway.
Saying it so quietly,
Like a sleeper’s 4 am sigh.

I knew what he said.

I did nothing but help him put his shirt on,
Dragging his dead arm through a coarse, sun-yellow shirt,
Tugging on a ragged, pilled sleeve,
I persuaded his crooked and stiff arm through.

I wonder when I will stop feeling…

How will I know I don’t care anymore?
Perhaps when I won’t have to wipe my eyes,
Blinking in the glaring whiteness of the hospital bathroom,
Pretending allergies or yawning is making me sniffle.

Maybe I won’t have to try to be harsh and cold then,
Because I really am.

Could it be, that I will always care, and be sad,
Grieving these patients’ loss for them?

But now…on this day…the man in yellow looks like a grandfather,
And I wish I didn’t feel.