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Riding Out the Dumb Silence
Riding Out the Dumb Silence
Riding Out the Dumb Silence
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Riding Out the Dumb Silence

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About this ebook

If you're looking for a poetry and short story collection where trains hit cars, garbage men find heads in trash cans, women throw groceries at men, gurus sheer their flocks, and little girls want to grow up to become dinner plates, this is the book for you.

If you aren't looking for those things, you really should be.

Phillips blends the all-too-real with the fantastic to deliver one of the weirdest, strongest collections you'll read this, or any year.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateMay 27, 2012
ISBN9781476031477
Riding Out the Dumb Silence
Author

Michael Phillips

Professor Mike Phillips has a BSc in Civil Engineering, an MSc in Environmental Management and a PhD in Coastal Processes and Geomorphology, which he has used in an interdisciplinary way to assess current challenges of living and working on the coast. He is Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research, Innovation, Enterprise and Commercialisation) at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David and also leads their Coastal and Marine Research Group. Professor Phillips' research expertise includes coastal processes, morphological change and adaptation to climate change and sea level rise, and this has informed his engagement in the policy arena. He has given many key note speeches, presented at many major international conferences and evaluated various international and national coastal research projects. Consultancy contracts include beach monitoring for the development of the Tidal Lagoon Swansea Bay, assessing beach processes and evolution at Fairbourne (one of the case studies in this book), beach replenishment issues, and techniques to monitor underwater sediment movement to inform beach management. Funded interdisciplinary research projects have included adaptation strategies in response to climate change and underwater sensor networks. He has published >100 academic articles and in 2010 organised a session on Coastal Tourism and Climate Change at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris in his role as a member of the Climate, Oceans and Security Working Group of the UNEP Global Forum on Oceans, Coasts, and Islands. He has successfully supervised many PhD students, and as well as research students in his own University, advises PhD students for overseas universities. These currently include the University of KwaZuluNatal, Durban, University of Technology, Mauritius and University of Aveiro, Portugal. Professor Phillips has been a Trustee/Director of the US Coastal Education and Research Foundation (CERF) since 2011 and he is on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Coastal Research. He is also an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Geography, University of Victoria, British Columbia and Visiting Professor at the University Centre of the Westfjords. He was an expert advisor for the Portuguese FCT Adaptaria (coastal adaptation to climate change) and Smartparks (planning marine conservation areas) projects and his contributions to coastal and ocean policies included: the Rio +20 World Summit, Global Forum on Oceans, Coasts and Islands; UNESCO; EU Maritime Spatial Planning; and Welsh Government Policy on Marine Aggregate Dredging. Past contributions to research agendas include the German Cluster of Excellence in Marine Environmental Sciences (MARUM) and the Portuguese Department of Science and Technology.

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    Book preview

    Riding Out the Dumb Silence - Michael Phillips

    coconuts

    my neighbor is outside

    cutting a coconut in half

    with a hand saw

    I don't think he is trying to get at

    the milk or the meat

    but whatever he is doing

    he isn't having an easy time of it

    there is a wooden pallet

    leaned up against the chain link fence

    he balances the coconut on top of the pallet

    saws a few times

    moves it to another spot on the pallet

    saws a few times

    moves it again

    he tries a few strokes

    with one foot up on the pallet for leverage

    then with the coconut against the fence pole

    then back on the pallet

    he moves that coconut a hundred times

    sawing at it everywhere

    everywhere except

    what would seem to be the logical place:

    on the ground

    but I can't really go out there

    and tell him how to cut his coconut

    I don't even know

    why he is cutting the coconut

    so any help I try to offer

    would probably be useless

    he has been sawing that coconut

    for about fifteen minutes now

    and I can't take my eyes off of him

    eventually he will make his way through the coconut

    and I will stop watching

    we will go our separate ways

    him with his perfect coconut halves

    me still wondering why

    one of us

    will have

    wasted

    our time

    storm watch

    it's finally raining

    had to wait until 4am

    but here it is

    it's not a great rain

    but steady, respectable

    waiting for a little water around here

    is like torture

    sometimes i'm afraid

    that the lack of weather

    is going to kill me

    i was born in a Minnesota snowbank

    it was February

    -22 degrees

    yeah, i know

    but it's true

    and being dropped into that kind of world

    tends to create

    expectations

    in a person

    we had clearly defined seasons

    and when those seasons passed

    you knew that a little more of your time

    had wound out

    but spring would always come

    with the sweet but fleeting feeling

    that you had at least one more shot

    at everything

    but here

    all we have

    is a calendar

    and i often forget to look at it

    so when i step outside

    i'm not sure

    if it is May or December

    summer fall winter spring

    it's all the same

    you can wake up one day

    and find that ten years have disappeared

    and all you have to measure it by

    is faith

    and the misguided belief

    that their year

    and your year

    are the same distance

    from whatever comes next

    if I was smart

    if I was smart I would take notes

    throughout the day

    look at that crazy guy...

    damn, it sure is hot...

    what is that on my toe?

    then when there was nothing

    coming down to the keys

    through the fingers

    I could simply flip through a few scribbled pages

    and find something to dig into

    as it is

    there is nothing here now

    but me and the dust

    and it's not even interesting dust

    from the Sahara or Istanbul or Las Vegas

    just garden variety Los Angeles dust

    probably fake dust

    from a movie set somewhere

    but you never know

    maybe it was tracked in from Utah or Montana

    North Carolina or Ohio

    and left in Union Station

    before the carrier set out for Hollywood

    or Beverly Hills or Compton

    an innocent cluster of soil

    knocked out of a boot tread

    on the way down the steps of the Greyhound

    a few grains caught up in a breeze

    and bounced through all the little towns

    of this big city

    finally making its way here

    and becoming trapped in this house

    just short of the salty water

    and a free ride to Catalina

    or Japan

    instead it lands on top of my telephone

    where I happen to see it

    while I am wondering

    what to type

    maybe there isn't any such thing

    as uninteresting dust

    just uninteresting

    poets

    chaos

    sitting here staring at the same page of the same magazine

    for fifteen or twenty minutes

    when the horrible screech of scraping, crushing metal

    gives me a jolt

    it is 3:18 a.m.

    I open the back door

    walk outside

    and there is a motor home

    slowly coasting toward me

    the engine is running, but it is just idling along

    apparently the driver had tried to park

    but instead

    hit an SUV

    turning it sideways

    and crumpling it up into the back of a red sports car

    he backed away from the unfortunate mess

    and continued on his way

    which is where I came into the picture

    the motor home was headed toward my car

    so I said a quick goodbye

    but somehow the driver straightened out

    and went on along his way to who knows where

    in the aftermath of all that

    I expected chaos

    alarms, irate car owners, police, dogs

    you know, those kind of things

    but instead it was silent

    I stood looking at the SUV

    interior lights on

    three windows and a good amount of metal

    shattered

    it was turned sideways and

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