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    A PLACE IN THE WORLD
    A PLACE IN THE WORLD
    A PLACE IN THE WORLD
    Ebook134 pages41 minutes

    A PLACE IN THE WORLD

    By Robert Flanagan

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    About this ebook

    Existentialist in approach, this collection of tightly woven, abstract poems explores ageing and what it means to not be young anymore. {Guernica Editions}
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGuernica
    Release dateJan 1, 2009
    ISBN9781550717662
    A PLACE IN THE WORLD
    Author

    Robert Flanagan

    1. The author, Robert Flanagan, is a retired US Army Chief Warrant Officer who served 16 years in Army Security Agency at all the venues depicted in this and the foregoing two novels in The ASA Trilogy. Before Army service, he served seven years in the US Marines. He served two 1-year tours in Viet Nam, and knew the book's characters under other guises. These three books, collectively a paen to military service in intelligence in the Cold War and Viet Nam, are filled with the exploits, foibles, hi-jinks and sacrifices of the many men and women who spent lifetimes serving in the backwaters of the world in honorable service to their country. 2. Following retirement from the Army, Flanagan returned to college, earning a bachelor's in Communications, a Master of Arts in English, and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. The manuscript of the three Trilogy novels was his working theses throughout academia. The genesis of the trilogy began 47 years ago in Viet Nam when he began keeping journals. 3. He is married to the same Julia for 54 years. They have four children, 10 gc, and seven ggc. They live on a ridge between two mountains in the Potomac Highlands of West Virginia. The author is already engaged in a new novel of totally different subject and settings. He is in his 13th year of writing a column for the weekly Hampshire Review newspaper in his home county. He is also a poet and publishes essays, articles, book reviews, and profiles.

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      Book preview

      A PLACE IN THE WORLD - Robert Flanagan

      ROBERT FLANAGAN

      A PLACE IN THE WORLD

       ESSENTIAL POETS SERIES 155

      GUERNICA

      Toronto – Buffalo – Lancaster (U.K.)

      2008  

      CONTENTS

      Action Central

      I Wait for the Collapse

      Security

      How Clever

      A Great Fear

      Notations

      Arcade

      Tired

      Lottery

      Duration

      Dreaming Off the Board

      Doors

      Simplicity

      Out of Pattern

      Not at All

      The Occasions

      So the Incontestable

      Pessimism

      Retribution

      You Follow

      Long Hours

      Experience

      You Are Without

      Advanced

      Plans for the Future

      What Under?

      Behind

      Capitalization

      Fear & Loathing

      Box

      Hunks of Wet Snow

      Good Manners

      The Line

      Blurred, Then Gone

      No Accident

      Authority

      This Unique Light

      Too Serious

      Mistaken

      Inside Affection’s

      Dead Heart

      Insistence

      A Bridge

      Correction

      Invention

      Infinity Little Too Much

      Endgame

      Deception

      & Gone Forever

      Ready Or Not

      Prudence

      Sacred Realized

      Presence

      Participation

      Water Under Earth

      Heroism & Salt

      A Little Ease

      Noted Anxiety

      The Best

      Handbook

      But Stimulated

      Conceit

      Still Unbeated

      Natural Another

      Liberation

      What a Surprise

      That Last Belief

      A Famine Burns

      Cunning

      Not Skipped Over

      Ready

      Procrastinate

      In Now

      Strongholds

      Exchange

      Drum-Rolling Leaf

      Immensity

      False Reports

      Anger-Fleece Warmth

      As Great as Wicked

      Avoidance

      The Breaking Through

      Very Difficult

      Familiar

      Wind Bending Tree

      First

      Frozen

      What Is the Meaning of This

      History

      First Continues

      Seen As Obstacle

      Upbringing

      A Pit

      That About Does It

      Introduction

      Standard

      Bring It Out

      Exile

      Indignation

      Gradual, Gradual

      Knowledge of Good

      Respect

      & What

      Knockout

      As in a Furnace

      Blissfed. Dogdead

      Cannot Do Without

      History

      Sweet & Slow

      Red Light

      Storage

      Ability to Incline

      A Bond

      Mountain

      Colossal Politics

      I Am Here

      Six for the Mother

      For Ayako Yamasaki & Robert Anderson

      And I always thought: the very simplest words must be enough.

      When I say what things are like

      Everyone’s heart must be torn to shreds.

      That you’ll go down if you don’t stand up for yourself

      Surely you see that.

      Bertrolt Brecht

      ACTION CENTRAL

      What I want from what I have, 

      to deal with what I have. Add 

      risk & anger & bake. Entirely 

      competitive, I stir primed greed

      into a swarming hive. A grudge &

      rant for the staring judge. A

      glad need for the struggle prize. 

      The abstract quality. Envy-headed, 

      I steer my own career-ship in an 

      absolute, breathtaking, bottle. Turn 

      here, without suspecting it, a

      vessel of grasping wrath! The shiver 

      of novelty in my style & pace. A 

      swimmer wanders sick, 

      into the insulted

      & injured whirlpool. Spellbinder 

      massages my neck with less taxes.

      A silk regime enjoys the view in my 

      wet palm. During these simmering, 

      cobbled plans for more wealth – I’ll 

      exhibit beaming bulk, alert sentry box.

      I WAIT FOR THE COLLAPSE

      I wait for the collapse –

      I dance on my grave defiant. 

      Defiant I tell you whether it 

      is good for me or not. So

      I’m in ruins forever – no 

      looking back with satisfaction. 

      To question myself beyond

      this life, this step-by-step. 

      Dissent through the lies – a

      liar’s chorus – the responsible liars.

      Destructive output to nudge – 

      the god nothing did not hesitate 

      to fracture future into moments – 

      witness broken – ready to die. 

      Killed in confidence, solitude.

      SECURITY

      What must be calculated, must be 

      profitable. Money. Product. 

      Innovative model of what should 

      erupt, when. A row of collapsed 

      houses. Bull’s-eye anxiety. Grey pencil. 

      Days of rage. The circular tour of

      a chain-saw stomach.

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