UNDERGROUND VOICES MAGAZINE/NATHAN A. BAKER


	UNDERGROUND VOICES: POETRY

NATHAN A. BAKER

Birding on Highway 10

Bomb blast
Rips through metal;
Rubber tires scream
As a freaky shrill of a whistle
Collides with the morning
And the eagles scatter,
Dusty wings ruffled,
Like a wave ebbing
Surreal and dry
Tension settling
They wearily alight
In unison to peck again
At the sand blasted
Eyes of War

Thump Kegs

Preacher liked poetry
He lived life in rhythm,
He liked to read it and write it
Penning rhyme about most

Everything occupying his mind
Wrestled a lot of demons out
Of his life with the word
He came to the way

Early in his life
His grandpa, a native, of Carolina
Married to a Primitive Baptist farm girl
Of Scot decent
Had much bearing on Preacher’s
Choice of vocation and lifestyle
He could have been given over
To making white lightning rather

Than to proclaiming the Gospel
Had he followed his daddy’s steps
Out to his uncle Ike’s moonshine still
Back of the bend in the creek,

Seemed like the whole family
Was caught up in the trade
All of the men had spent time
Locked up in county jail

For making or distributing illegal corn.
Most had been shot, one seriously,
With buck shot pellets and two uncles
Died in a car fire fueled by shine.

Making whiskey came with a set of dues
One paid now and the other paid later.
It was the second reckoning feared most
And the one that usually brought end

To a soul’s illegal whiskey making days
Heaven favoring wines over shine and all.

Nathan is a carpenter/poet living in the mountains of Tennessee.
His poetry has appeared at Red River Review, Tamafyhr Mountain
Poetry, Lily, Underground Window, Zafusy, and Blue House.