{"id":1586,"date":"2009-02-09T10:54:00","date_gmt":"2009-02-09T10:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=1586"},"modified":"2009-02-09T10:54:00","modified_gmt":"2009-02-09T10:54:00","slug":"john-irvine-has-a-warning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/john-irvine-has-a-warning\/","title":{"rendered":"John Irvine has a warning"},"content":{"rendered":"

The man who ate life<\/span>


knew a man once who ate life<\/span>

he was a wheat and sheep farmer<\/span>
had a wife and money in the bank<\/span>
almost owned his farm and everything on it<\/span>
loved his beer and a drop of port<\/span>
sang a pretty fair copy of Kristofferson songs<\/span>
when in his cups which was often<\/span>
he was the life of every barby<\/span>
every gathering and function<\/span>
with a non-stop delivery of quips and jokes<\/span>
always asked to bring along his guitar<\/span>
he never refused<\/span>

as a member of the Volunteer Fire Service<\/span>
he drove the fire truck did all the courses<\/span>
fought the bush fires<\/span>
gave archery lessons at the local primary school<\/span>
was designated \u2018wicked\u2019 by the 12 year olds<\/span>
even did Father Christmas once for the small ones<\/span>
fished and hunted and tanned the skins<\/span>
grew his own vegetables and fruit  <\/span>
made chutneys and jams and pickles<\/span>
raised chooks and eggs<\/span>
loved his dog<\/span>

one day<\/span>
he ate his 12 gauge<\/span>


* John Irvine is a regular IS&T contributor \u2013 we'll have news of the anthology he is putting together later this spring.<\/span>

<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The man who ate lifeknew a man once who ate lifehe was a wheat and sheep farmerhad a wife and money in the bankalmost owned his farm and everything on itloved his beer and a drop of portsang a pretty fair copy of Kristofferson songswhen in his cups which was oftenhe was the life of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1586\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}