{"id":664,"date":"2019-01-05T20:37:58","date_gmt":"2019-01-05T20:37:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/?p=664"},"modified":"2019-01-05T21:01:46","modified_gmt":"2019-01-05T21:01:46","slug":"poetry-by-raymond-byrnes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/2019\/01\/05\/poetry-by-raymond-byrnes\/","title":{"rendered":"Poetry by Raymond Byrnes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Raymond Byrnes lives in Virginia. His recent poems have appeared in Shot Glass Journal, All Roads Will Lead You Home, Panoply, Typishly, Better Than Starbucks, Eclectica, Sky Island Journal, and Split Rock Review. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asters<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Out front, soaking rains that fell last month
\npush out, through sun-scorched clumps,
\nscattered clouds of waving white anemones. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Out back, as red and yellow zinnias subside,
\nplain green aster shrubs, dressing for the last
\ndance, unbutton a thousand purple blossoms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vagrant monarchs, probing worker bees,
\nswallowtails, fritillaries, moths in moonlight
\nmine densely flowered mounds, mottled gold. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A week of rain leaves blue-chalk skies, starry
\nnights trailing frost at dawn, and abandoned
\naster plants, heavily arrayed in soft brown buds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Airborne<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They say, for all the millions spent on micro-drone
\ndevelopment, plus testing them aloft in swarms,
\nnothing yet can match the aerobatics of a dragonfly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Children know. They scream and run with covered
\nheads from the bug that comes to stitch their scalps.
\nDoesn\u2019t matter if it never happens, because it might.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From perched to full speed in a blink; forward, back,
\nup, down; catching, eating flies on the wing; it flits
\nabout, propelled on four thin strips like latticed glass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dragons fly in many forms: Darners, Skimmers,
\nMeadowhawks, Dashers, Snaketails, Boghaunters,
\nSpineylegs, Clubtails, Shadowdragons, Emeralds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Engineered assemblies fly, but fuel cells get depleted.
\nDark water nymphs climb stems to wait in sunlight for
\nhumped-up creatures to burst their skin and open wings. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Raymond Byrnes lives in Virginia. His recent poems have appeared in Shot Glass Journal, All Roads Will Lead You Home, Panoply, Typishly, Better Than Starbucks, Eclectica, Sky Island Journal, and Split Rock Review. Asters Out front, soaking rains that fell last month push out, through sun-scorched clumps, scattered clouds of waving white anemones. Out back, … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa867U-aI","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=664"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":671,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/664\/revisions\/671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/ruescribe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}