DigitalCommons@C.O.D.

Arlos, Tristan

The Prairie Light Review 
Volume 42 Number 2 Article 30 
Spring 5-1-2020 
Mt. Taal 
Tristan Arlos 
College of DuPage 
Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr 
Recommended Citation 
Arlos, Tristan (2020) "Mt. Taal," The Prairie Light Review: Vol. 42 : No. 2 , Article 30. 
Available at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr/vol42/iss2/30 
This Artwork is brought to you for free and open access by the College Publications at DigitalCommons@COD. It 
has been accepted for inclusion in The Prairie Light Review by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@COD. For 
more information, please contact orenick@cod.edu. 
Mt. Taal                                                          Tristan Arlos
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Arlos: Mt. Taal
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English

Mt. Taal

Fotos, Adam

The Prairie Light Review 
Volume 42 Number 2 Article 48 
Spring 5-1-2020 
In the Hospital 
Adam Fotos 
College of DuPage 
Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr 
Recommended Citation 
Fotos, Adam (2020) "In the Hospital," The Prairie Light Review: Vol. 42 : No. 2 , Article 48. 
Available at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr/vol42/iss2/48 
This Selection is brought to you for free and open access by the College Publications at DigitalCommons@COD. It 
has been accepted for inclusion in The Prairie Light Review by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@COD. For 
more information, please contact orenick@cod.edu. 
In the Hospital                                                Adam Fotos
Princess Diana is 
dead,
     her Rolls Royce like a crumpled 
paper cup dipped in black enamel. The beetle-thing 
twinkles back the camera flashes and street
lights as we watch from above
through the lenses of angelic attendants
the camera crew from CNN, and we 
read in the ICU from the TV above my grandfather’s
bed about her last game of polo.
My grandfather lies asleep and I don’t
think about the entourage of machines around him
braiding his body with sensors and tubes 
buzzing intermittently, and I don’t wonder
why they would let us watch his blood
filter in and out of a large grey box,
through clear, plastic tubes.
I listen to my step-father whispering of the royal family
and conspiracy.
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Fotos: In the Hospital
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In the Hospital

Kagin, Ethan

The Prairie Light Review 
Volume 42 Number 2 Article 52 
Spring 5-1-2020 
The Pipe and Board 
Ethan Kagin 
College of DuPage 
Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr 
Recommended Citation 
Kagin, Ethan (2020) "The Pipe and Board," The Prairie Light Review: Vol. 42 : No. 2 , Article 52. 
Available at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr/vol42/iss2/52 
This Selection is brought to you for free and open access by the College Publications at DigitalCommons@COD. It 
has been accepted for inclusion in The Prairie Light Review by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@COD. For 
more information, please contact orenick@cod.edu. 
The Pipe and Board                                       Ethan Kagin
   
A puff of smoke
A spark of flame
A wooden pipe
An old chess game
Both are scholars,
Both may teach,
Each in silence
Devoid of speech
The pipe, 
The trademark of a man
May lead to listen,
As no other can
Calm your breathing,
Still your tongue
Learn to listen,
 Like the young
On the board,
Eight men stand
Each a leader
 Of the land
The pipe made gentle,
The game made wise
To a man of character
The challenge lies
Be the king
Of his own
By love’s grace,
Hold the throne
See the enemy
As they come,
Face your fear,
Beat the drums
Only you can beat your foe,
The army from your heart of woe 
With courage, valor, and wisdom strong
Your army cries its battle song
At last, you see, their king at bay
At last, you see you’ve won the day
And as the smoke clears you will find
Peace inside your weary mind
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Kagin: The Pipe and Board
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The Pipe and Board

Roberts, Lucas

The Prairie Light Review 
Volume 42 Number 2 Article 55 
Spring 5-1-2020 
Floating Away 
Lucas Roberts 
College of DuPage 
Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr 
Recommended Citation 
Roberts, Lucas (2020) "Floating Away," The Prairie Light Review: Vol. 42 : No. 2 , Article 55. 
Available at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr/vol42/iss2/55 
This Selection is brought to you for free and open access by the College Publications at DigitalCommons@COD. It 
has been accepted for inclusion in The Prairie Light Review by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@COD. For 
more information, please contact orenick@cod.edu. 
Floating Away                                              Lucas Roberts
I squeezed the wheel with both hands, sweat lubricating it as I 
let the image of the stranger’s car float away. You are a danger to 
society with your poor driving, and you should be bitten by dogs is 
an automatic thought. I don’t have to let my automatic thoughts rule 
me, do I? Just let the thought of the car float into you, float out; the 
anger, the unwarranted judgment, the visceral, physical sensation 
of blood pressure rising and nerves tightening. If I don’t fight them, 
the thoughts will go away. That’s what they said.
  They could have missed three green arrows. So that’s a positive 
thought.
  It was hot. The sun highlighted the cracks in my windshield and 
the eddies of dust in the cabin. I wanted to open the window, open 
both windows for a delicious air river, but there were probably forty 
people nearby exclaiming and strutting and letting their smells out 
all over the place. So that was a nope. I should have fixed the air 
conditioning.
  Or I could be the boss of my own mind! I could take this opportunity 
to be positive like I apparently was five years ago when I first met 
Alicia. Look! The sunshine! It zazzles like an electric beam and 
bounces off of poor and rich alike. That building over there is, 
frankly, an underappreciated architectural masterpiece. It could be 
described as a drab check-cashing place with misery soaked into its 
rocky pores, but that’s the negative effect affect talking. It could just 
as fairly be described as a sturdy marblesque financial institution, 
solemn gray-black like a knight in mourning.
  I reached my hand over to the passenger seat to check my package- 
still there. Worth way more than air conditioning, I thought, and I 
felt a little smile bubbling. A real one, with a current from lip corner 
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Roberts: Floating Away
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to lip corner to the base of the spine. I didn’t have to dredge it up 
with mindful recitations of mindless mindfulness exercises-
 HOOOOOOOOONK!!!
  I dashed a foot onto the accelerator just as I processed that I’d been 
viciously honked at and just before I saw the yellow arrow turning 
red. I went through, car speeding but mind slow like swimming in 
molasses and everything was too bright. I heard more honks and 
felt tire squeals like razor cuts and then I was going straight again, 
head throbbing and temperature too high.
  DAMMIT. Why did people honk? I didn’t honk, I never honked. I 
was raised properly. I just let that person from before go, didn’t I? 
Just let them sit in their car at the corner and play on their phone 
because it’s rude to be rude. I started as a car blurred past me 
dragging its noise, a tiny red thing like a toy. Was it the guy who 
honked at me? It probably cost as much as the house we sold. No, 
it couldn’t have been the barbarian horn-punching misfit, that guy 
must have missed his turn and that’s why he was furious with me.
  Maybe he was visiting his elderly grandmother one final time at 
the hospital and she had cancer. One of the really bad ones. And 
every second he spent missing lights was a second away from 
Nana’s last words. See? That’s positive affect talking. Maybe he just 
wanted to get out of this rathole neighborhood, where they had an 
armed robbery two weeks ago and only my wife wants to move in.
  That was mean. People aren’t rats.
  People were nice to me. They said that just because I, technically, 
have an at-risk mental state doesn’t mean anything bad will happen. 
Not at all! Violent, repeated thoughts are surprisingly common and 
they involve family members because the sick juxtaposition triggers 
steroids like mad. Wouldn’t care if it were the mailman, would I? 
I should just remember that everything I say here stays between 
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The Prairie Light Review, Vol. 42, No. 2 [2020], Art. 55
https://dc.cod.edu/plr/vol42/iss2/55
us and oh, I need to turn in my firearm. It’s just a precaution, and 
they’ll be telling the judge that I’m perfectly suited for occasional 
visits.
  I drove slowly, picking my way through the potholed streets. I kept 
seeing that red car, who logically didn’t honk but in my waking-
dream he did, whipping by just beneath the surface with a peeling 
rubbery squawk every time I took something in. Shack houses with 
peeling paint, squawk. Old cars with no tires, squawk. A spinning 
glass windchime that took red from the sun and bounced it up and 
down- squawk!
  Here she was. Her house was objectively the worst, in my opinion, 
ankle-high grass and drunken fallen gutter. Maybe I wasn’t the only 
one of us who needed constant help. I scooped up the package like 
it would run away and clutched it to my chest.
  I vibrated as I froze in my car. What was I doing here? She could 
sandblast the flesh from my bones with one stare, make me shake 
and whimper. Remind me without speaking of the details she left 
out of divorce court proceedings because they weren’t lascivious 
enough- that’s why she was ending it! Not funny. Truth hurts. Don’t 
pass judgment on yourself don’t live in other people’s thoughts 
which are only your thoughts feelings aren’t facts just let it go let it 
in let it out let it float away-
 “DADDY!”
  I expanded with numinous light and forgave my enemies. I jumped 
out of the car and dropped the present and a flapping angel tore 
down the lawn and into my arms. She was happiness perfected, 
she was perfectly smiled and eyed and all wiggly and radiant. I saw 
my ex-wife leaning against the corner of her shack, and I was right, 
she was giving me a stare. I didn’t care anymore. The next six hours 
were for me and my perfect, and we were going to eat ice cream.
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Roberts: Floating Away
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Floating Away

Malone, Fin

The Prairie Light Review 
Volume 42 Number 2 Article 63 
Spring 5-1-2020 
In Silence 
Fin Malone 
College of DuPage 
Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr 
Recommended Citation 
Malone, Fin (2020) "In Silence," The Prairie Light Review: Vol. 42 : No. 2 , Article 63. 
Available at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr/vol42/iss2/63 
This Selection is brought to you for free and open access by the College Publications at DigitalCommons@COD. It 
has been accepted for inclusion in The Prairie Light Review by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@COD. For 
more information, please contact orenick@cod.edu. 
In Silence                                                          Fin Malone
 
No poetry in silence let’s suffer together
I rode through the day no matter the weather
Familiarity looping backwardly
All the noise, how true can I be?
I feel the cold.
I feel the rivers and the trees
The mountains and deserts, forests and valleys
Something called, deep from within
So I took to the road
Left it all behind
Rewind
An old man sings me a song about love
On a steel post, a worker’s glove
Wild horses gaze, I stop to see
A stranger’s laugh makes me smile.
Shelter from hail after days of hell
Reluctantly I say fare thee well
At sunset, friends share their food and drink
Memories memorialized as you pass in a blink
Through endless Misery hills I have roamed
Through mountain, canyon, desert alone
Catacomb tomb, my mind left me here
My body, broken, trembled in fear
I’ve seen this land for what it really is
People claim to see broken pieces
But I see broken people, we’re all the same
We live our lives framed by fame
With pocketed scars and subsiding dreams
With blood on our face, I can hear the screams
We ride through the day no matter the weather
No poetry in silence let’s suffer together
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Malone: In Silence
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In Silence

Maren McKellin interviews Gib Egge, Instructor and Coordinator of Experiential Education and Training, to discuss the effects of COVID-19 on the outdoor and adventure education industry. Gib shares Leave No Trace principles to help protect the great outdoors both here and abroad as we start venturing out again

Egge, Gib

McKellin, Maren

Episode 7: Outdoor and Adventure Education: Returning to the Great Outdoors

Julia diLiberti interviews Dr. Michael Duggan, Counselor for Students with Disabilities and Adam Wasilewski, Assistant Professor of Sign Language, about how COVID-19 is impacting those who are deaf and those with disabilities

College of DuPage

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Mt. Taal

In the Hospital

The Pipe and Board

Floating Away

In Silence

Episode 7: Outdoor and Adventure Education: Returning to the Great Outdoors

Episode 9: COVID-19, Disabilities and Deafness

The Effects and Dangers of Oil Drilling in Alaska’s National Wildlife Refuge

For the Love of Songwriting

A Childhood Dream: A Guide to Veterinary Medicine

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