{"id":775,"date":"2010-08-11T16:32:00","date_gmt":"2010-08-11T16:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=775"},"modified":"2010-08-11T16:32:00","modified_gmt":"2010-08-11T16:32:00","slug":"john-osborne-is-counting-ladybirds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/john-osborne-is-counting-ladybirds\/","title":{"rendered":"John Osborne is counting ladybirds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ladybirds<\/span><\/p>\n

“There are so few clouds in the sky \u2028
I could fit them all in my pocket”
\u2028you said to me \u2028
lying on the hammock in our garden\u2028<\/p>\n

but I ignored you \u2028
assuming you had heatstroke
\u2028or were tipsy after your third glass \u2028
of Martini and lemonade. \u2028<\/p>\n

The sunshine had brought out a side of you \u2028
I had never seen before
\u2028so tranquil, happy
that summer not once did you complain about your job <\/p>\n

or how I never offered to help with the washing up.
You even picked flowers
from a meadow we discovered \u2028
on one of our walks<\/p>\n

you arranged the bouquet with such perfection
that when I joked we should both quit our jobs
and open a florists in the South of France
\u2028you bolted upright and for a moment \u2028\u2028<\/p>\n

both of us were there. \u2028
Sometimes I think back to that summer
\u2028and wonder if we would still be together
\u2028if you hadn't woken from an afternoon sleep<\/p>\n

and found me setting fire to ladybirds.<\/p>\n

*John Osborne<\/a><\/span> is the author of Radio Head<\/span>, The Newsagent's Window<\/span> and What if men burst in wearing balaclavas?<\/span><\/a> He has had poetry published in The Guardian, The Rialto and The Spectator and was longlisted for this year's Eric Gregory Award.
<\/font>\u2028<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ladybirds “There are so few clouds in the sky \u2028I could fit them all in my pocket” \u2028you said to me \u2028lying on the hammock in our garden\u2028 but I ignored you \u2028assuming you had heatstroke \u2028or were tipsy after your third glass \u2028of Martini and lemonade. \u2028 The sunshine had brought out a side […]<\/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-775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775","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=775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}