Antony Osgood

Antony Osgood

Antony Osgood lives a skimmed-stone’s bounce from Margate. His first non-fiction book was published in 2020 and a second will be out in 2022, both through Jessica Kingsley. His story Haus des Meeres appeared in BlueNib, September 2020, while the prose-poem All My Darlings Waiting was published by Literally Stories in May 2021. A poem written in a bread queue, called Barrier Nursing, is in the 100 Words of Solitude anthology by Rare Swan (Switzerland). He is completing his third novel. Retired early from academia and psychology, he passes his time with little to show for it.

Antony Osgood’s writing on disability and autism can be found at http://tonyosgood.com/

 
Ships Are Not the Only Casualties of Zante

A great green spindrift sea
Rests whitely on
Bleached pebble,
Smashes a cyanide sky,
Sits smaller than my finger in your mouth.

                                                                      You

Seabird call
Carves autumn air
Calms driftwood,
Soothes ship splinters,
Shelters in the crease of your hand.

                                                                      Do Not

Love looms over seashore cliffs,
Drags drowned upright
A body against Egyptian winds,
Demands of us
The gifting of your sight.

                                                                      Belong

Two bodies out of time, and depth,
No more than uninvited guests
Levitate the surf
Toward landfall’s unkindness,
The embrace of harbour walls.

 
                                                                      Where

We are, they sigh against smooth pebbles, as you once were,
Singers in love with hithes,
Beneath yellow moons
We poured green oil
To fill the lanterns of your shingle songs.

 
                                                                      We

Who are we to dare to climb
A precipice to Europe?
We are alive like you
Blue Aegean children,
Insufficient, unprized in your tongue.

 
                                                                      Belong

Is our moment here not miracle enough?

 
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Poetry in this post: © Antony Osgood
Published with the permission of Antony Osgood