Age: 23 I graduated from Tennessee Tech University last May with a BS in Management Info Systems and minors in English and Painting. I have been writing stuff that I still admit to, for about 2 years. Lately, I've been reading quite a bit of poetry by Phillip Larkin, John Haines, Russel Edson,Marvin Bell, and David Wojohn. I've decided if you read a bunch of stuff by poets that are 180 degrees, then your writing can't stagnate.I have painted for several years and noticed a lot of similarities in the two medias. This led me to write. The differences intrigued me also. On canvas you have one frame to play with. With poetry you have more room to shine or to hang yourself. I thought it was more dangerous.

In August, I found that is a matter of perspective. I was held at knife point and forced to explain one of my paintings. It had Jesus, Judas, Nazi deathcamps and the Pope all within 4' X 8' of canvas. This redneck mental patient with a knife couldn't see the humor in it.

Fruitcakes are less likely to take the time to read a poem than look at a painting. So I guess I'm safe for a while.

-------- Three Poems about neat stuff -------

A Girl, Belial and I Have a Threesome

God's head is here! It is,
I thought, but vanished away.
Right below my window sill
just above beer cans and
packs of birth control pills.
He's in peripheral-
in temporal sight- watching through a cobwebbed attic window
like some celestial peeping tom
watching windblown condoms roll like tumbleweeds
as I do lustful, covetous things to His
creations- Cindy, Christie, myself, Sue, Kim,
Etcetera,
Angels, and myself once more
when I think He's looking away.

Simultaneous ejaculation of nasty,
bad things
spews from my mouth and
my wanker. Both say the same thing-
just in different media. And
a tally mark goes on my bed
and Belial snatches a
carbon copy as he staggers back to Hell.
And every time a name is screamed,
some poor fellow calls his girlfriend

and doesn't get an answer.

Driving

A flood of thought pours
as I drive from school
to parents. My car's muffler-
less drone hypnotizes me. Barns tic to my left
and behind, right and
behind and a church to my left. Tic
and behind.

No radio, well its broken, a gift
from a fraternity brother. Pledg-
ing. Pledge Brothers. Robert pissing in his closet.
Robert beating the hell out of Page
for being an ass.
Fighting Jeff. Karate.
Rank exams.

I shake my head
to knock musty thoughts
and carbon monoxide from me.
Bird shit on my wind shield. I move my head
using the shit as a cross-hair to aim
boredom missiles at a brown & Bondo Nova travelling
up ahead. Under the blanket of my engine
the Nova seems to glide silently like a junker space craft towing me behind.
An invisible tow cable linking
my K-Car to a lopsided and
expired license plate. Like a hobo
who's never seen Seattle I feel free
and I jump onto a different train of
thought.

Space is everything. A huge nothing. A quark
of the tiniest atom in a molecule of ink
being a miniature universe and every atom
in that universe being another universe
and then smaller to infinity- Always getting smaller.
Then of course the big side
of the continuum where the sun is an atom
in a monolithic carbon atom in God's eyebrow
and so on until everything gets
infinitely huge and then
bigger to never ending levels. If its not true,
then where does it end? If a brick wall
surrounds our universe and says "stop here"
then what's on the other side? It can't end.
What would end it?

I'm having trouble believing
the heavens are created and five days later
the process is complete and ready for man to enjoy.
It seems arrogant to think
six feet tall men are the midpoint
of positive and negative infinity.
Suddenly my stereo not working doesn't
seem to be a big deal.

A truck is approaching me
on my side of the road- passing a car. I move
to the shoulder to avoid
hitting the dumbass. Some dick in a hurry
to thump his lowrider around the Mall almost killed me
in the middle of a deep thought. My muffler
is droning loud as ever. My ears are full
with the sound. I wiggle my jaws
to pop them and begin
singing "Mee Mee Mee.." just to make
sure I'm not deaf.

Sound. Vibrations knocking air into other air into other air
at somewhere between 20 & 20,000
times a second. Air vibrating and slamming
into my ear drum. Slamming like fighting and
hitting. Hitting a wall with my fist
and leaving a dent. Sound

must leave little tiny dents. Atoms in a coin
being jolted by the voice of
Jesus saying, "Wine, please." A coin with little
atomic dents like bumps in a
record groove. A coin that has the voice
of Jesus, a bunch of Romans and probably
some coin collector's maid
letting a fart while dusting with no one around
all recorded on it.

And a "Livingston City Limits. Home
of space shuttle pilot Mike McCully" billboard
approaches and its left behind holding
infinite universes and the sound impressions
of a thousand cars whooshing past. One of which
belongs to a reckless lowrider and
then several copies of a mufferless K-car.

I Threw a Beer Bottle

at a parked car
one winter night while riding on a back road
in Livingston. I was cold from hanging out of the
window and
not spotting a road sign. The car was old,
green, a beat up Maverick with a Jesus is Coming
bumper sticker, not worth much more than the beer
John, Carey and I bought that night.

A man stumbles quickly to the front porch
of the shack with a shotgun almost naked & screaming,
"Ya fucking bastards!"

By the time he's outside
the only car in sight
is his with glass sprayed across the hood.
He fires two slugs into the air anyway
before lowering his gun and letting its warm barrel slide through limp fingers. Maybe,
to make his family feel safer
or to keep himself
from feeling so powerless.

We ride on that night and John throws up
and sleeps late. This guy
picks glass from his car seats
and mumbles "Goddamn those cock suckers."
before he goes to work.

And soberly, I eat breakfast and my
mom asks me if I had a good night, and all I can think about
is a child hearing the cracking of
a frosty windshield outside and screaming,
"Daddy! Daddy what is it." A child
like I had been
not understanding
why someone would do something
unfair.

-C. Bryan Hunter cbh6365@tntech.edu