Patrick B. Osada is a retired  Headteacher, he works as an editor &  also writes reviews 
of poetry for magazines. 

Patrick has been writing poetry  all of his adult life. His first success came with a 
prize winning poem in a National Poetry Competition. This gave him the confidence to 
submit his work more widely, leading to regular publication of his work in many of the 
leading poetry magazines.

His first collection, CLOSE TO THE EDGE was published in 1996 & won the prestigious 
ROSEMARY ARTHUR AWARD.

Patrick’s most recent collection of poetry, SHORT STORIES : SUBURBAN LIVES (Bluechrome), 
deals with the difficulties and loneliness of  the many people…  “trapped in dark suburbia, 
just trying to survive.” 

Patrick’s work has been included in a number of anthologies,  internet sites & broadcast 
on national & local radio.

Gloucester born Patrick  has lived and worked in Berkshire for many years.
His life in semi-rural Warfield has inspired him to record the life of this charming 
parish as a sequence of poems which he hopes to turn into a collection. 
 

ROME


Japan is empty now! In every shot
Themselves - with Rome a backdrop to their time
On tour. Each monument becomes a dot,
An adjunct to their transient joy, no rhyme
Or thought for beauty’s past or ancient place
While they have cameras, smiles and Gucci bags.

And would The Steps still be to John Keats’ taste?…
This scrum of souls with all their national flags,
Costly, must have brands, posing - looking hot,
Trying to be cool - waiting for a sign
Of fabled fifteen minutes fame that’s not 
Unlike name writ in water  - not sublime 
Like Keats’s modest phrase - but more germane
To media fed obsessions that obtain…




NOT AUBADE

I leave you to untroubled sleep…

Rising in darkness, wide awake -
Alert as if it was midday -
Petty concerns have seen off sleep.
The demons who disturbed my rest
Will not be stilled whilst lying here
And make a racetrack in my head.

Calmed by dimmed light and humming fridge
My thoughts are slowed, I take control
And find solutions instantly
For silly problems that stole sleep.
The cats sleep curled like tight white balls
And through the window, endless dark
Envelopes trees and fields and hills.

A solitary car roars past,
Tunnelling night with lights and noise -
Going to where?… Leaving a tryst?
Or off to work the graveyard shift? -
A change of gears and up the hill,
It fades into the settled night.
And are there others at this hour
Who, like me, can find no rest?
And what of all those lonely souls 
Who’ll leave tonight, but will not rise?

Perhaps it’s Larkin’s demon death 
Who troubles me and makes me wake,
Needing the darkness to commune…
Enough of this, it’s back to bed,
For these thoughts do not frighten me -
Knowing I’ve left my own small mark
And found a love to last my life.

Clear headed now I watch you sleep
Then settle down and close my eyes.



WILD RANSOMS 

Along the cliff edge -
Too far to safely reach -
These white bells tantalised
With their strange scent :
A pungent odour on the breeze
Their signature.

Later, in Roseland,
We saw them grown like weeds :
Filling meadows, smothering hedgerow grass,
Covering the roadside verge
Like gentle drifts of snow.

And at St. Just, filling the churchyard there,
Bluebells and ransoms like a haze
On every bank, round ancient graves.

And, through the palm
That grows where you now rest,
A solitary ransom flower had set.

Though far away in miles and time,
The smell of garlic takes me back -
Transports me instantaneously
To that Spring day :
The tiny church, the muddy creek,
The ransom flowers and you