A Place in the World
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About this ebook
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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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.