it’s because
vespering Venus
and an annular
pared moon
align with
the set sun
as if designed
by a cosmic
kinetic jeweller
and the heavens
are symmetrical
as nothing
on Earth was
that speaking
animals
abandoned
swards of words
for galaxies
of number
to start
map-reading
time with
and eventually
make
from phases
of metal words
and machine-tooled
maths
anything like
a Lucifer
and falling moon
Osney Oxford
20 March 2007
the British are just
the West Dutch
Britain’s their
Great Batavia
they only go Celtic
to pretend otherwise
what’s wrong with being
commercial and Dutch
with refining
quiet spirit from gold
we are all their
Afrikaners
top-hatted slouch-hatted
lemon squeezered shot-gunned
Bibled and bird’s nest-beaded
adamant women-commandoed
we can’t live on corpses
whose identities
we assume
Osney Oxford
16.3.2007
light all too much like
freshwater on plants
dark reflected day
in globes more than dew
gave the rained-on place
the time-spaciousness
of a drop unrun
Osney Oxford
6 March 2007
their past was night
their future
a status quo
they had made
immortal
death rejoined
each of them
back with that dark
their light of day
dappled dazzle
like copper beech
blood was their shade
from the steel sun
Blackwells Oxford
24.2.2007
“Public Service”
my father decided
people’s lives
I in turn
decided
people’s lives
my friends all decide
people’s lives
my wife used to decide
other people’s lives
I decide our child
won’t go deciding
other people’s lives
Osney Oxford
23.2.2007
“S. Nicola in Carcere”
as Jacqueline
won’t be a-maying
this year
we went
Januarying
in Rome instead
taking with us
the bulb
in her womb
we went looking for
the roots of Spring
and found them
intermurally
beneath the temples
of Janus, Juno and Spes
down in Janus’
very January
whose doors
opened on war
and closed on peace
an emptyblue egg-shell churchincubatesJuno’s crypt
and the ossuary
of Hope itself
chapels
where people
divined their futures
instead of having scans
and archaeology
gets to be head-banging
knee and elbow-scraping
speleology
amongst niches
that once contained
safe deposit boxes
or low sudden pitfalls
onto Tarquin’s
veggie market
and its deflowered floor
something always
wants out
that tries to stay
hidden
even tiny
green and white tiles
that needed scrubbing
repeatedly
immured more
by the cornered dark
than by tufa
and brick arches
I felt certain
of your disclosure
baby to be born
in June
sure as we knew
we’d return back
into the sun
after an hour
in over two millennia
of man-made night
doors will open
on you this year
you will emerge
into the wet
and shaking light
our insurgent
from the pacified past
31.1.2007
Revised 26.10.2013
“S. Nicola in Carcere”
as Jacqueline
won’t be a-maying
this year
we went
Januarying
in Rome instead
taking along
with us the bulb
in her womb
we went looking for
the roots of Spring
and found them beneath
the Temples of
Janus Juno and Spes
inter-murally
down in Janus’
very January
whose doors
opened on war
and closed on peace
inside Juno’s crypt
and the ossuary
of Hope itself
chapels where people
imaged their futures
instead of having scans
an unbroken blue
egg-shell church squats
empty on their nest
sealing them in
on themselves
archaeology gets to be
head-banging knee
and elbow-scraping
speleology
amongst niches
that contained safe
deposit boxes
or low sudden
pitfalls onto
Tarquin’s veggie
market and its
deflowered floor
something always wants out
that tries to stay hidden
even tiny
green and white tiles
that need scrubbing
repeatedly
immured more by
the cornered dark
than by tufa
and brick arches
I felt certain
of your disclosure
baby to be
born in June
sure as we knew
we’d return back
into the sun
after an hour
in over two
millennia
of man-made night
doors will open
on you this year
you will emerge
into the wet
and shaking light
our insurgent
from the pacified past
31.1. 2007
Bernard Francis Cadogan was born at Blenheim, Marlborough, New Zealand on 29 October 1961.He was educated at Otago University Dunedin NZ, and at Peterhouse, Cambridge, and Keble College Oxford.He has worked as a political advisor and consultant for Ministerial Services and Parliamentary Services at the New Zealand Parliament, for Hon Bill English, Rt Hon Jenny Shipley, Rt Hon Simon Upton and Hon Trevor Mallard.He has currently completed a book on the political philosophy of Sir George Grey KCB ( 1812-1898) who was Governor of South Australia, Governor of the Cape Colony and High Commissioner for Southern Africa, and twice Governor of New Zealand and once premier of New Zealand, and Superintendent of the Province of Auckland. This will be published 2014. He is also working on a book for Lexington Books, an imprint of Rowman and Littlefield, Maryland, on the political philosophy of Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005) with respect to the New Zealand Truth and Grievance Reconciliation Process.He married Jacqueline Richold Johnson of Lewes and Seaford, Sussex at St Mary the Virgin Oxford, Great Britain on 4 February 2006. They are currently living in Oxford. Their son Ragnar was born on 7 June 2007. Their daughter Tova was born 15 April 2012.Everything on this site is copyright to Bernard Cadogan.
I saw the moment
before death
last night
at least that’s
what I took it for
it was the last thing
I wanted to experience
and what I know
from it
is that there is
a particular judgement
that you administer it
to yourself
all lies are gone
there’s no time to argue
or make excuses
that we can feel
dread and despair
at this moment
struggle at
the closing brink
especially when
despair brought us there
or else love and hope
for the others
we leave behind
or believe -
for there’s no love
without belief
these don’t exclude
the stoic option
yes walk on still
in darkness
and fall like
one of the princes
however this requires
a disproportionate
investment of life
much familiarisation
study and training
a lot of nerve
for such a small
yet all-consuming moment
and even then
death surprises us
can cut us down
and make us quail
love fears
but can go on
I admit I felt
momentary panic
then dismay
that this
was happening to me
that that
is what it is like
that that
is all there is
to it
I must love
and let go then
Keble College Oxford
1 January 2004
Pablo Neruda’s old homes
have now shrunk
to a bottled ship
with a high view
onto a rainy port
poets can well end up
confiding poems
to time-capsules
but all historians do
is make model ships
inside bottles of different sizes
a four master could be laid down
within a condiment bottle
or a brig built in a massive flagon
the people who do history
like this and make
replicas out of it
must either be imprisoned
or greatly confined
in space or mind to
make constant footnotes
or parenthesize
their freedom this way
but if the flask is sound
and stopped up right
the ship will float off
just the same
or ride in dry-dock
indefinitely
carrying news of
what dictatorship’s
like for everyone
on board the torture
ship “Esmeralda”
that’s under weigh and
under full canvas
stranded in doldrum
Borders Cafe Oxford
23 May 2006