Poem (I remember)
I remember the abolition of perspective presenting itself as an innovation in perspective.
I remember watching crowds of people trying to escape the violence of a historical event in
process.
I remember the artistic representation of an object having a greater emotional effect than that
object in reality.
I remember looking out towards Brooklyn through the structures of the Brooklyn Bridge.
I remember dreaming of my father dying and my brother hanging himself.
I remember hoping that the cultural exports of the year 2000 were released in celebration of the
year 2000.
I remember a poetry not of arrival, but of movement.
I remember a consistent fear of dying, or of near-death.
I remember suspending Lara Croft beneath the surface of the Ganges until she drowned.
I remember that she was about to say something.
Necessary Stranger
Look at the sky, go
the distance, flames
I move around
confused through water
and I look: you’re always
blind. The unknown is almost
glass, capable
in its remaining.
A lake unfroze and
so have you.
I wake to find
I’ve been having
direction, then nothing.
Take me apart
and with the shifting
make anything.
Now you’re even.
Rowland Bagnall is a 22-year-old student of Literature currently working towards a masters degree at the University of Cambridge. Recently, his work has appeared – or is forthcoming – in Coloureval, The Missing Slate, Revolver, Belleville Park Pages, Cake, The Moth, and the latest edition of Oxford Poetry.
