Oswald writes poetry that combines a fascination with traditions of the distant past with a genuine interest in digging beneath the surface of all things to find layers that beg to be translated into words.

I want to be the only / surgeon in the world / who knows how / to cut you open, stitch / you up.

titless as she is, the female is there / no matter what’s been taken from her

Will you be rich? / What does greedy mean? / Does Sir know Midas, where is he from? What is the goat’s name? / Where does the river go?

And so I find myself stuck in the wrong century / like Peale, probing swampland for bones, / reassembling skeletons and stepping inside.

What’s the first thing you do / in a house you suspect haunted? / You sing.

Now language is a prison, / true communication is impossible, / our deepest desires remain eternally frustrated. // We are the flies nutting the closed window / next to the open window.

I tell cats on the street, 'Hey kitty, she swallowed my cum!' / I told the shy Indian woman in the corner shop, 'Do not be afraid, / for she swallowed my cum!' I even told my mum...

Let it be sparrows, then, / Still dancing in the blazing hedge, // Their tender fury and their fall, / Because it snows, because it burns.