passenger: "exit collapsed"

closed for remodeling

2013-05-11T09:00:00.000-05:00

mostly fictional

Counterfactual Romance

2010-09-29T03:45:00.001-05:00

The name of tomorrow is yesterday.
My name is regret.
Her name is prescience.
Breathe a time lapse into her signature. Attempt a reconciliation three lifetimes away.
This cant be another reminisce, but it is a forgiveness.
Ten years pass and you feel no difference.
Quiet nostalgia cuts you thrice-wise. The horizon collapses cold and silent on a Minnesota winter.
Quiet recollection breathes new awareness into a life filled with “what if.”
It’s been a lifetime of forgetting.
It’s been years of pretending.
Another life shouldn’t be too much to ask. Riding quiet in backseats, waiting.
Nights breathing last breaths above antique shops.
The hardest thing is believing, but belief cuts crosswise because being right is the worst thing to be.
I’ve created an echo chamber of my own remorse,
a world with women constantly caring
and me constantly dying.

this is a placeholder

2010-05-20T04:40:00.004-05:00

my night as a wreck lost all the glamor.
time to forget the dusk of naive and hopeful embraces.
wept into a cup of filthy highway truck stops.
not a time to forgive, let alone forget.
keep it close, remember the bile and maintain contempt.

Conversations out of context

2009-12-02T11:43:00.001-06:00

Item 1:

A: Was this the Holocaust?
B: Yeah.
A: How was it?
B: It was really really good.

Item 2:
C: What did he say?
D: He'll slaughter my family. I love my family, I don't want them slaughtered. [slight choked up teariness here].

Carafe of Bile

2009-11-12T04:18:00.004-06:00

What crippled amnesia will you insist upon this time? Don't confuse my kindness with weakness, I see every part of you.

This abandoned church keeps talking like something could seep out and anchor itself in the ether. You're leaning over a window sill pretending like you know exactly what time the rain is coming. Decades stole our surroundings and the past reminds us of tomorrow's transgressions.

The last time I heard silence singing through infinity was seven years ago in a loft apartment in St. Paul. Shatter some god's morality and explain why it is you made me feel the way I do. Maintain rewards, and sustain weeping punishment so as to secure your place firmly at the front of my mind.

Whoever you think you are, you're wrong. Nothing's ever touched me the way I pretend you have.

As if I needed a reminder

2009-07-25T01:23:00.002-05:00

Not sure what got me going on this, but I started googling people from my past. First I started with people who I could remember from grade school. This is one I've discovered about them: one owns his own fitness center and appears to be doing exceptionally well, one is a movie producer or some shit, one is a shitty musician and one is a poker player with documented winnings of over $250,000. Fuck. Like I needed telling I was doing the worst out of my peers. Then I moved on to high school, and many of them are doing the same or worse than me, which is probably an indication that I took a drastically different slant than most of my grade school peers. What kills me the most is poker guy, 250 fucking thousand dollars. Fuck. Fuck this.

I got nothing. I got nothing on this one.

7th Avenue Therapy

2009-07-16T04:54:00.003-05:00

"Straighten out that ring and punch me in the face," I mumbled. It was Tempe, AZ and it felt like the middle of summer, but it was only March. "We both know I need some status," I'm begging to feel something. She laughs while turning away; I lean easily against the bathtub, the floor of the bathroom getting more comfortable by the minute. "I tell you what," I manage, "tell everyone I attacked you. That way I look like fucking Satan and you're the saint." I can't make shapes out anymore so I'll never be able to tell you what happens next. Suffice it to say, however, that I AM Satan, and the saints; well, Christ himself couldn't forgive these transgressions.

Negotiate the last crises of the time it takes to expel my last breath
Re-write the years we spent crying about fidelity
My last words spoken
retain a sinister quality
in light of the directions you’ve pointed your
uterus
But who am I to question the great
knowledge
of your engorged clitoris
mashed against the face of a man you said you’d die before you did
“that.”
Maybe next time
“thinking with your dick” will apply
to me.

Shared Sacrifice this Saturday (6/27)

2009-06-25T12:39:00.006-05:00

In addition to the progressive journal arm of Shared Sacrifice, who have published some of my more nonsensical drunken ramblings, there is also the radio arm. This weekend they will be talking with Specialist Victor Agosto who refuses being stop-lossed to Afghanistan. From the Shared Sacrifice website:

Our guest this Saturday, June 27 on Shared Sacrifice Weekend is Specialist Victor Agosto of the U.S. Army, who is refusing orders to deploy to Afghanistan. Agosto returned from a 13-month deployment to Iraq in November 2007, was based at Fort Hood, and was stop-lossed and ordered to go to Afghanistan. He refused, stating "The occupation is immoral and unjust. It does not make the American people any safer. It has the opposite effect." If Agosto continues to refuse orders, he almost assuredly will face court martial, and likely jail time.

Live stream from Noon-2:00 PM mountain time, Saturday
Our call-in number is (347) 327-9615
More information about Victor is available at http://ivaw.org/node/5121
We are at www.blogtalkradio.com/shared_sacrifice and www.sharedsacrifice.us

In addition to checking out the coming radio show and previous broadcasts you should also give the journal a look here.

they have their way

2009-05-27T02:16:00.004-05:00

Someone took the lies that make up my writers.net profile and created a page for me at the Legacyview Biography dictionary. It's pretty humorous, albeit short: http://www.legacyview.com/wiki/John_Tvarsky. They transferred over the bad English and everything.

Observation from 1245 to 0135

2009-05-06T03:02:00.003-05:00

There is no culture. We pray to assimilation every Sunday. I can't rearrange my genome to include a heritage I don't own. We are unstuck from history, a land without a past. This Deutschlander hides behind a veil of cultural ignorance. He knows better than anyone here what passes for tact. Keep the stories of your Vaterland to yourself, I've woke from that dream four times this week.

something to note

2009-04-25T04:56:00.002-05:00

if i'm going deaf you are allowed to shoot me in the face upon completion.

-~-

write it down thirteen hundred years from now
we weep into each others beer glasses
drink it down
weigh the amounts of certainty
we swear we knew
which echo have you
locked your frequency to?
none of these humans know
calamity
nothing has ever been secret
everyone peers in my direction
as if
i am a weathered old seer
they meet my eyes
makes me wonder if they know something i don't
laughter turns to cacophony
deception has filled every line
we will wait with
bated breath
hoping for a miracle
humanity has been boiled down
to this

No one wants to hear what you dreamt about, unless you dreamt about them

2009-04-23T22:53:00.004-05:00

Strange dreams last night. Couldn't sleep for and hour or so and like most things it was over as soon as it started. Mechanic St. is an emergency service vehicle access road and I get to hear every emergency. Not long after that there is a thunderstorm which requires the shutting of windows and balcony doors. When the sandman finally does come, like I said, fucking weird dreams.

The most striking one:
I am in an unnamed African country, I think it might be Lesotho. I am working on a story or taking some kind of trip. Either way I have an assistant with me and we both write lots of things down. Somehow during our travels my right hand is injured in some manner or another. The solution to this problem is to nail my hand to a board of some kind. This seems to make perfect sense to me, you know . . . to keep the hand straight? We are treated well in the town or village we are in and the local officials offer to nail my hand to the traditional hand-nailing-to-board, which happens to be attached to some weird penal cage.

I am now standing in the desert nailed to a wooden cage that has, ostensibly, criminals locked inside of it. The cage was constructed in the following manner: imagine you have several 2.5'x2.5' wooden cubes. Now imagine you stack 3 or so on top of one another as a whole unit of maybe 6' or 7' by 2.5'. Immediately adjacent to this you stack 2 cubes and next to that you stack 1 cube in a sort of staircase design. Each stack of boxes is a cell and they move from relatively comfortable to oppressively small. These cages are mostly wood with some wire on top for rain or something to get into, I'm not sure.

So, I'm standing there with my right hand nailed to the tallest cage, but my long sleeved shirt keeps covering up my hand so I can't tell if I'm holding it straight, and for some reason pain is not notifying me of such, so I demand my assistant un-nail me from the cages so I can change shirts. In attempting to remove the nail he somehow loosens the smallest cage enough for its inhabitant to scoot himself out of. He does this very slowly as the village officials come running over demanding to know what we've done. Comedy of errors ensues and no one but me seems to notice that this prisoner is slowing scooting himself away from his cage. I am looking directly into his eyes shouting for help as I somehow sense danger. Suddenly I am eating a large piece of meat (perhaps I'd had it the whole time, hard to say.

The prisoner begins moving toward me. I am screaming. He stands and lunges at me and as he does he transforms into a brilliant white savage cat of some kind. His jaws glisten and are coming right for me. I tear off a piece of meat and throw it. He catches it. He continues through the air. I throw the rest of the meat at him. He devours it. I tear my nailed hand away from the cage. He is at my throat. No one notices. I am screaming. He is making headway against my defenses. Suddenly I have his hind legs. I pull him away from me. I grip him securely with both hands and dash his head against a rock. Over and over I am slamming his head into the Earth like a sledgehammer.

Dream over.

Thoughts on the Smoking ban: 2318 against 2333 for

2009-04-07T21:29:00.005-05:00

I've rarely participated in forms of politics that I do not agree with until today. Some time ago I decided that I would not lend my labor to endeavors that are counter to my personal politics. Things like non sustainable government are not something that I am interested in. I couldn't tell you why if you'd injected me with a poison only you have the antidote to, but I fucking love this town. It's seen me through some of the best and worst times of my life. That's why today, April 7th, I went to work for coercion. I told my name, signed my signature, inserted my magic voting card and pressed the screen. Later I displayed the "I Voted" sticker for the first time in the 7 years I've been "allowed." Two and a half hours later we sit in silence. Defeated. 15 motherfucking votes. This town I love continues slipping slowly and surely through atrophy and sits precariously on the edge of total annihilation. Over a year ago capital flight and job loss has terminated city works projects. The current economic slump continues to fuck Emporia squarely in the ass. Thomas Frank was prophesizing more than he could know when he said "this is a civilization in the early stages of irreversible decay."

They say places like Emporia get culture a lot later than other more urban locales. This may be true, but something that is pretty quantifiable to me is how we're getting the collapse of civilization a lot faster than elsewhere. Our roads are crumbling, in many places the earth has recolonized the concrete. Our water quality steadily declines while food prices march higher and higher. This is the goddamned backbone of our country. This nation has gone from a primarily agrarian society to a net importer of sustenance food. We turn our backs on places like Emporia, KS or Riverton, WY or Ely, NV when the industry dries up. For me, however, you can keep your high fashion and bleeding edge culture. I'll remain happily here on the cusp of the decline of modern civilization as we know it. Pass your city killing ordinances and see whose left for you to save. What a beautiful messiah you've turned into.

i'll guarantee you

2009-03-16T18:57:00.003-05:00

i'm suffering through 7pm on a monday at the bar. never enough cigarettes. drinking is like war, i'm firing for full effect. i wish the soviets would invade and get this fucking joke over with.

notice

2009-02-02T01:53:00.003-06:00

i should be sleeping, but instead i'm sitting here listening to knife in the water and feeling sorry for myself. what a fucking waste.

i was thinking of compiling the hardest/worst days of my life, juxtaposed with the best/happiest. it could be good for me or the worst thing ever, which is why i haven't done it yet.

i need a razor.
i need to clean my apartment.
i need an attorney.
i need to see a doctor.
i need new glasses.
i need to drink more water.
i need to wash my car.
i need to do homework.
i need to call my mother.
i need a drink.
i need to cut my hair.
i need a shower.
i need to do laundry.
i need cigarettes.
i need to go to fucking sleep.

year long winter

2009-01-29T22:50:00.000-06:00

doesn't seem to be a point in writing any of it down.

Things that I want

2008-12-31T13:58:00.002-06:00

by John Tvarsky

a smoke without a fine
some ice for my whiskey
for the sun to shine
for unlimited ammo and a license to kill

2008-10-09T02:12:00.003-05:00

i like this shit. it isn't for anyone. a document to remind me how i used to be. where i've been to remind me where i wanted to go.

"do you feel like your drinking is a problem? have you ever thought you should quit drinking? do your friends or family worry about your drinking?"

did magellan worry about cape horn? fuck you. he just grabbed a crate of limes and tossed a few bottles of tequila into the hold to get those sailors on the fucking ship.

this is the end of the world. nothing really matters. whenever conversation is attempted i just nod, smile, and/or laugh. you really need to know that nothing you care about is even a consideration of mine. you have to realize that i love you, but we're all corpses.

jesus i want town topic right now.

fuck you all.

i'm mad as hell and i'm not going to take it anymore

2008-09-21T02:18:00.001-05:00

"
I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth, banks are going bust, shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TV's while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be. We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.' Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad!
"

im the king of nails

2008-09-07T02:26:00.000-05:00

Two AM when I cycle through the contact list in my cellular telephone. I shed a few tears when I realize there’s no one left to talk to. Sure, friends are available, but when an existential dread has mortar teams zeroed in on your soul and a hollow spot just this side of believable ruptures solace; passing acquaintances don’t do the trick.

Water betrays too much, lights come down in a fog of tyrants and the questions asked can’t come close to answered: “We were here before, don’t the lights shine knowledge on our obscured faces?”

Indignant? That’s just pushover with a backbone, raise the night’s eye eastward and caress the sun’s retreat. I’ve given up too many times and when you’re finished trying you’re sort of left with nothing to hold, even behind your back; away from the prying eyes of those that would profess love to your every thought.

November’s scream ruptures the lightning of her indifference. I couldn’t look away if I’d been paid, but six inches of gratitude shield me from the worst hurricane you’d conjure.

substitute for content

2008-08-01T18:07:00.005-05:00

more from the department of revenue

2008-05-31T12:08:00.002-05:00

you need way too much shit to get a stupid car registered in this state. safety inspection? fuck's that? tax waiver? i'm not a scientist, goddammit. at least i don't have to deal with emissions and blah blah blah. i will drive for 2 days without registration. hopefully i can get everything done on monday. otherwise, hare kari.

this is freezing

2008-05-30T09:44:00.003-05:00

for me, today began yesterday around 1500. i went to work on my day off not because i was needed. no, i was coerced into working because i wasn't there when i was needed, otherwise because i didn't answer my phone on previous days off when they've tried to call me in. because of this and my desire to take my accrued vacation time, i was forced to stare at the ceiling for somewhere in the neighborhood of thirteen hours.

my car's registration expires saturday so i dutifully make my way to the dmv/dor around 0830 to make the 0900 opening. my directions were faulty at best. to add further grimace my car begins squealing loud enough to hear six blocks away, forcing me to drive exceptionally slow to avoid sonic assault. i make it into the vacinity of the dmv/dor around 0930 and walk six blocks in this unseasonal sticky heat only to discover cash & checks only.

good fucking night.

commerce'd

2008-05-29T15:44:00.000-05:00

google's sponsored links generated from kmcn:

Garbage Disposal
Stomach Ulcers
Punchline
I-Quit
Slips
Suns

heil-arious.

2008-05-01T08:26:00.008-05:00

he is a bleeding angel. and i mean that in the american sense. not the english. he is an angel that bleeds. all the treasuries of the world should shower him with gold bouillon from their vaults. also, i imagine he would be nice to your children if they did not anger him.

3 weeks

2008-04-28T00:12:00.000-05:00

zero anything

200th post / 4 year anniversary

2008-04-07T16:30:00.002-05:00

wanted to note the occasion. might do something to commemorate.

monolith

2008-03-31T07:51:00.001-05:00

i hate poetry

here's some "found" poems:

~

scream the clicks

monsters, clichés restrain the scale of mine
silent music howls subtitles on the speechless screen
ghosts train your fingers brought by static
the rope shouts, some importance arrives
mainly something about noise,
now something about seats on a train
muted life and the shock is coming:
this girl whispers lightning

&

winter colliding with my eminence could recognize this scenery
her sand slips hopefully through distance
close each impending night into the saved glimmer of limp perspective
my reasons can never be enough
exquisite doom, her lost explosion is shattering my slow physics
will these inches, seen striking everything
always trying to stop the miles
her storms occupy enough space for me

ride the derail

2008-02-29T05:04:00.002-06:00

traipse in your corridors. thirteen earths around seventeen suns couldn't come close to cracking the threshold. deadbolt eyes. sacrifice the altars. luminesce in the twilight, breathing ice. i willingly climbed inside. crossing the expanse, begging for a reason. sobriety's relapse whispering sweet and quietly beside the night stand. you clasp your hands behind your ears waiting for the punchline. collapse in the ether, cum drunk and weeping the refrain: you're much worse than i think you are.

2008-02-24T01:50:00.002-06:00

i hear the people above me running their garbage disposal constantly. motherfuckers dispose of more garbage than i am able to produce. it's sonic annoyance of the worst kind if you include their regularly scheduled wrestling matches directly above my bed that begin precisely when i close my eyes for sleep. it wouldn't be so bad if they'd be a little more american about it. i mean, dispose of your garbage properly. put it in your body. just like me.

2008-02-09T03:29:00.000-06:00

shun the attire of the times. i don't remember a single word that's been written down and i feel completely stupid. it's night on earth. everything is awful.

everything is awful.

everything is awful

2008-01-23T22:37:00.000-06:00

living is freezing. cascade in the twilight, head resting on the altar. night couldn't come soon enough. don't misunderstand, it's just you murder me in your dreams. christ was faking it, i met him last week at the bowling alley. his name is 'les' and he has three kids and stomach ulcers from all the wine.

try not to get this wrong, everything you look at is turning to dust. please, don't breathe so hard, a lungful now kills a hundred in the crunch. a thousand holocausts an hour. a million vietnams a day. get used to it, it's what you've always wanted so you'd better enjoy it.

upward mobility means climbing my list of things to do today. number one has been "kill self" for years now. i think i'm finally making some headway.

earmark the book, the last chapter isn't really that great anyhow.

have you seen this man?

2008-01-16T20:04:00.000-06:00

10 january - westport, mo

see what happens? this "picture a day" thing has failed miserably. as i'd predicted. just another one of those things we call a "masterpiece" in my drop-out i-quit-everything world of mine. i never finish anything. don't live like me, children.

also, i wanted to write something something about concrete something. the brilliance has to wait, years probably.

366 tvarskys - 9 jan 2008

2008-01-10T18:31:00.000-06:00

9 jan 2008 - kansas city, mo

tired of sleeping.

366 tvarskys - 6 jan 2008 to 8 jan 2008

2008-01-08T20:06:00.000-06:00

listen to this. if you shake it hard enough you'll be able to discern my meaning. tobacco dust settles on my freshly laundered floor. smiling at my accomplishment, i smear a thick mixture of flour and angostura bitters all over the walls. i'll thank you to call it "guerrilla resistance." why look forward to days off work if you spend them vaporizing the last remaining semblance of your sanity? why look forward to that?

8 jan 2008 - kansas city, mo

7 jan 2008 - I-35, ks

6 jan 2008 - lenexa, ks

366 tvarskys - 5 jan 2008

2008-01-05T17:47:00.000-06:00

5 jan 2008 - kansas city, mo

how boring is this? someone asks you what's new and you tell them you cleaned your apartment. or that recently you figured out a way to trick people into thinking your phone is disconnected. i haven't done laundry in a month. just getting it fucking done, i mean leaving the house for something other than work, just finishing it -- that's the really hard part.

366 tvarskys - 4 jan 2008

2008-01-04T17:45:00.000-06:00

4 jan 2008 - kansas city, mo

it's been cold lately. real cold. 7 degrees cold. i think i may cut my feet off to get the blood recirculating. this is silly.

366 tvarskys - 1 jan 2008 to 3 jan 2008

2008-01-03T20:56:00.000-06:00

im attempting to do something i will probably not keep up on, but i will try anyway. i will take a "portrait" a day for the next year. not sure what's compelled me to do this, but hopefully it will encourage me to take more photographs and perhaps write more drivel.

1 jan 2008 - kansas city, mo

2 jan 2008 - kansas city, mo

3 jan 2008 - kansas city, mo

Old long since.

2007-12-31T20:00:00.000-06:00

The radio plays nothing but static. This is what we're reduced to. Drowning in rain, black ink dripping off our fingers. Shine like spring through eternity. We've dynamited the orchestra, whispering symphonies. Flash bulbs make out their faces and none mirror a thing mirthful. Drops of glass spun into sirens, pulling down the curtains of our skulls.

For many, the year is already new.

Learn your latin.

2007-12-28T02:18:00.000-06:00

I woke up the other night to an emaciated Jack Lemmon sitting on my chest, naked, humping my throat. His face like a skull, with thin lips humming the tune to "yankee doodle dandy." When I sat up, he fell off, vomiting a green sort of bile all over my mattress. He could not be placated, and his ferocity erased the remaining sane neurons firing in my brain.

Seventh Avenue Fuck You

2007-12-04T23:00:00.000-06:00

Lay it down. Swords to plowshares. Nobility ranks lower than honesty. Cut them out, night streets filtered through snow. Hours spent waiting with a warm fifth. Watching. Never anything.

Calamitous ramshackle warnings etched into my windshield, 6 years running. I look away, slowly I sigh, knowing not to worry about petty bullshit ever again. A motto for the millennium: we don't have to put up with this anymore.

Missionaries of the new Armageddon.

2007-11-28T20:19:00.000-06:00

Daybreak is waking cracked like Autumn branches, breathing dust. I stumble down the stairs, kiss the sidewalk and gasp through concrete.

I scream to the neighbors, "Quit looking so fucking perplexed!"

The night's lights maintain utter control, the birth of a new day cannot match, "Stop staring!" echoes back and forth in the street.

Whatever my eyes might find is crumbling. I'm careful with my spine, it's never felt quite so straight. Squinting to the sunrise, vomit spills out my mouth, down my coat and into some bushes. I light a cigarette and remove my glasses from a fresh puddle of bile that's gathered at my feet.

This city's riptide has washed my pride back to sea. And as if in retreat, a raccoon scuttles between a couple parked cars. "Annihilate." My voice is sandpaper scratched down a thousand hotel bathroom mirrors. Three days pass and agony has laid roots. Morning's sky freezes and her rain passes through me, cauterizing every wound.

........eh fuck

2007-11-12T19:24:00.000-06:00

Seven days ago I pointed my face at a stranger and opened my mouth to speak. Now no one will look at me. Word travels fast in a day and age when life means you can watch previews of your humiliation before she activates her sound hole.

Seventeen miracles afforded to the worst murderers. The afterlife doesn't mean seventy-five virgin Asian contortionists, it's more something like your friends being stabbed in the neck over and over again while you get to watch. Don't imagine some look of horror on your face either, because in reality you're eating popcorn and drinking a soda. Slightly you yawn.

Please return to me the list of your faults I loaned you, it needs updating.

2007-11-09T21:34:00.000-06:00

im not really interested in your excuses anymore.

2007-10-30T19:26:00.000-05:00

if you act like meat, you should expect to get cut.

that's it, suck the misery out.

2007-10-18T22:30:00.000-05:00

seeing how
i am unable
to change

and can't seem
to really get serious
about suicide

i guess i need
to find a woman

who thinks a man
is most handsome

when he is sad

2007-10-04T12:30:00.000-05:00

reputable men scoff in my direction, i've nothing to offer your society. times of grace? please forgive the effort, but my time is wasted on other things that are a tiny bit more important. living the way weasels might find themselves when at their lowest. recount harder times when life meant scraping your knees on a concrete slab, cracked in the face of one hundred thousand nothings. he helps those who help themselves, however days have numbers and time is finite. lapse into a sudden coma and pray to please.

you loved me once, but i took the stars . . . i took the sky. boil the seas, my wireframes cut sideways in a way you probably couldn't ever lay a finger on. the night sky sighs, wishful breathing. take a nap, you'll find your throat slips easier into the noose than you figured.

i didn't come here to make speeches, i came here to die.

week long drunk

2007-09-15T04:50:00.000-05:00

This city is freezing. I drove for three hours looking for a decent Reuben. Wherever I pointed my face, I'd seen it before. My palate is cracked sideways. I walk the streets for hours, eyes front and shoulders back. Don't look at anything. Don't give anything away.

Days spent idly reading books and daydreaming of the woman who will discover that I am exactly what she's been looking for. Autumn breathes its frostbite down my spine. I huddle close to the wall. Winter has come too soon. The sun is crashing into the sea.

Save your tears, you'll wish you had the water next summer. Can I fit another season metaphor into this agonizing introspection?

. . . Probably.

we cant be saved

2007-09-01T20:36:00.001-05:00

sound collapses out your mouth. my chest is sinking in. time is doing a shitty job healing these wounds. raise a toast! the last time you breathe my name. look away, the mirror is shattering at the thought. winter's bite is sweeter than a thousand of your tears. lose yourself in the folds of his embrace. autumn winds are all the warmth i've ever needed. is this doing the trick? do you love me yet?

take a number, motherfucker

2007-08-25T15:42:00.000-05:00

"what are you talking about? this is a fantastic story!"
-john tvarsky between his 8th and 9th scotch and water

"fuck this, i'm getting the bat."
-john tvarsky between his 10th and 11th scotch and water

i have a problem with your lies. and before you suggest it, i will not get over it. that is an option that was duly noted and rejected. your bullshit has shut the olfactory down. fuck. i can't think with all this noise constantly emitting from your sound hole. i have a big fucking problem with the way you remember things. i've never owned a bear trap, but the facts usually add up upon further scrutiny. sorry, your birthday isn't on my list of things to remember. promises made, dedications are. some story you told me about your first roommate in college might make it in there, but it's way behind late night confessions and early morning professions of love. fuck, there i go again. don't expect it to sound the same when you've left the tape on pause for 4 years.

there really isn't a way to express how disgusting you are.

an affront to god? nope. just to my intelligence.

2007-08-10T14:58:00.000-05:00

i ate something called the "awesome reuben" today. i got it from "the new york deli" somewhere around 90th and troost and while it seems like a nice place, i have a complaint:

this sandwich, one i enjoy in a general way, cost $10. think about that. three slices of bread. corned beef. swiss cheese. saurkraut, and get this . . . mustard and mayo. that's right, no edible blowjob thing that sucks your dick from the inside. no opiates, sedatives or tranquilizers. not even fucking thousand island dressing. the rye bread was weaker than that cripple i power lifted off a bridge last week. i am fucking pissed. i would've got a better reuben at fucking arby's and for once it'd be a deal!

fuck the new york deli's "awesome reuben" that thing is shit.

p.s. you get two fucking pickles with the sandwich. i don't even like pickles.

2007-08-09T19:40:00.000-05:00

wrote a pager turner. thirty-six hours ago i was swimming in a river. leeches cauterized veins clean in the middle, forcing the removal of several limbs. christ, the metaphors get old.

my credibility is waning.

i woke up facing a kitchen, my face pressed into carpet. i tried to roll over, but my back was flush with the bottom of a couch. something was stomping on my head.

i sat up.

a strange woman came out of a bathroom. as she walked past me: "good morning."
i heard myself say, "hello." and she bounded up some stairs.

i found my glasses on the floor underneath the dining room table. i put them on, left this unfamilar house. the car started right up and i drove away.

2007-06-29T21:35:00.001-05:00

first friday night in the city. sitting in camping chair in a room where every sound echos. leeching wireless internet and drinking espresso i made way too strong out of a gas station cup. i bent over to tie my shoes earlier and got so dizzy i almost fell over. not sure what that's about. soon i will enjoy a steel reserve 12oz can, of which i have several. this is very exciting to me.

was supposed to go to the replay in lawrence for a show, but the call never came. i suppose my talent in hanging out is being saved or something.

p.s. quit taking pictures of yourself making like you're pointing a gun to your head. it's annoying.

thanks.

2007-06-28T05:50:00.000-05:00

as esoteric as i insist on being, i understand that this probably makes no sense to you. but you can't cry foul when i'm just stating an opinion. if there's anything you want me to know, don't assume i know it. because i am very stupid and chances are outstanding that i probably don't.

unless you're just trying to solidify some kind of final cut off sick perversion thing where you denounce people for doing things you've kindda made your life's work doing. if that's the end of the era, then fine by me. for once or twice i didn't do anything awful.

nosir, just consensual.

who has the short straw? is this the short straw?

2007-06-28T01:08:00.001-05:00

i bought cigarettes from a woman with a tracheotomy today. i don't think i need to say anything else about that. really.

also some guy yelled at me to get away from my car. that was fucking weird too.

2007-06-23T05:24:00.000-05:00

jesus came to town tonight.

i think he said he was from chicago ... maybe new orleans. i don't really remember. he didn't like it when he saw this girl get kicked in the head. i didn't really like it either, but jesus fucking split. i don't know about you, but were i jesus i would've done some water into wine shit or something. i mean ... SOMETHING.

anything.

jesus, fuck my ass in heaven above.

2007-06-07T04:59:00.000-05:00

swingin man. my feet never touch the ground.

christ. i hate everyone so fucking much.

WELLS RANGES

2007-05-29T00:33:00.000-05:00

he made a sandwich bigger than my head. i knew i could never eat the whole thing. 3 sets of cops walked in and took a booth near the back. i felt for the lump of my flask and sneaked past them towards the bathroom where i took a long pull.

nothing can call itself a diner if i can't smoke in it. this place is disgusting.

sunday night at half past midnight and civilization is crumbling. eleven beers clink around when i slam the door to my car as another cop pulls into the lot. i crack one open and have a taste.

somewhere, men in suits are masturbating into wastebaskets full of hundred dollar bills and laughing hysterically at me. you too, probably.

resolute weariness

2007-05-12T07:09:00.000-05:00

threatening you? i have nothing left to threaten you with. unlike other players in the game, with their late night accusations and thousand page tomes of indignities forged in alcohol flavored tears and pathetic self-indulgence. it can't be a contest of form or function, not at this age. it can't be anything more that what it already is. and that's something i'm woefully incapable of defining.

i waited in the snow for four hours as if only a few moments had passed. i heard the laughter of twenty people i'd never meet. i caught the faintest breeze of your scent. i saw a million stars raining on my parade, quiet and in lockstep with an impending doom i know so well. i whispered syllables unabashedly and with passion. my eyes infernos of nothing in particular, only moments i'd soon lose my grasp on.

don't blame me for remembering, hate me for forgetting.

this bridge is coming down

2007-05-08T07:05:00.001-05:00

"it doesn't have to be december for winter, but you can count on one thing: spring always comes."

keep telling yourself that, chris. where did such optimism come from!?

burn this rice paddy to the fucking ground, no use throwing anything. conversation, storyline pen the eulogy and drop fucking dead. though, it will help if you smile a little and look to the sky ever so slightly first. it'll make things look a lot better in that bear trap of a memory ya got there.

there's nothing else to say. cancer metaphor, season metaphor, blah blah blah.

to plagiarize myself:
it's a "keeping your shit together long enough to die is fucking hard" kind of thing.

remember one thing if you remember anything: winter always comes too.

2007-05-01T07:05:00.000-05:00

the dust is settling.

you're more real in a dream

2007-04-01T08:45:00.000-05:00

revise a storytelling wrought in a thousand broken firing synapses.
imperatively you'll write things down that haven't seen the light of day since weeping was in fashion.
don't cry the story, it leaks out. open the faucet.
simply think: "goodnight."

pray for rain.

2007-03-21T09:22:00.000-05:00

>this drought threatens to never end.

i watch the folded faces of no less than three grizzled men with cigarettes hanging from their lips, driving with a lazy kind of purpose alone on a sunday morning, going nowhere already. plates of etched glass slide by obscuring my vision. it's obvious, some people really aren't meant for anyone.

we'll say these things with slipshod intent, but never mind those who don't mind it.

2007-03-17T22:57:00.000-05:00

what better way to put myself in my place?

things to do:
~~buy a pack of squares~~
tell the fast eddie story
remember the redlight moment
kill the dog

2007-02-23T07:55:00.000-06:00

three visits in the last three days? this is unheard of for you. you don't point your face at a computer for months at a time. you hate even turning it on.

this is faux content, just for you. don't let it get to your head. coded messages aren't always what they seem, quite obviously. maybe this isn't about you after all.

and i already told the doctor to go suck a lemon.

"congratulations on your survival"

2007-02-14T21:26:00.000-06:00

23 years down, several more to go.

2007-02-07T08:08:00.000-06:00

i've never been able to say, "sorry, babe, i've got a train to catch." it's a tragedy, but not in the millions of people dying kind of way. i'm not sorry for it, and i try not to make apologies for the way my synapses fire, because after all, i can't really control them.

random acts of uselessness, burying pry bars in the skulls of strangers without wasting any water. keep the fear behind your back, hold it closer than any shameful secret of a thousand molested childhoods.

there's a year written already where you'll be able to lay waste to any kind of burning, smoldering disaster of a life. i've seen it, promise.

2007-02-01T14:46:00.000-06:00

we're losing this war

2007-01-28T05:14:00.000-06:00

and you will never be able to wash the taste out of your mouth. it's taken a thousand years to get to where i'm standing. don't think of me, don't even think of any of the letters that make up my name. don't burn the calories firing the synapses, it'll never be worth it.

central standard time is the reason that this song won't sing.

2007-01-22T02:10:00.000-06:00

hello . . .
newport news, va
birmingham, al
chandler, mn
farmington, mi
denver, co
cheyenne, wy
wichita, ks
topeka, ks
ann arbor, mi
yonkers, ny
whittier, ca
and
colorado springs, co

an open path of communication often works both ways

it's all the dust to me

2007-01-18T02:54:00.000-06:00

moonless night. gone over the edge with the rams. can't hang anymore, too washed up and deaf to make many differences.

eel juice filling me with daylight, crack a whip at the base of my spine, all pumped out. 8 months is a lifetime. 4 months is a lifetime. 2 months is a lifetime. etc, etc.

two sides to every coin, stories are often much simpler. retrace the steps of this treason, you haven't got a thing you haven't owed someone else. i am less noble than most dogs, what you make ends up making what you. make sense of that, mozart.

notes on an imagined future

2007-01-16T02:59:00.000-06:00

can't sleep. the mind's too loud i think. smoking cigarettes and reading bits of things trying to get tired, it's only half working. went through old emails and notes and shit like that ... terrible mistake.

things might be slightly better than i make them out to be, also they might be slightly worse. i haven't crunched the numbers yet.

kindda feeling forgotten type thing. used once or twice and discarded. motivation is a tricky thing in practice, simple on paper.

blah blah blah blah

"watching white moon face, the stars never feel anger blah blah blah the end"

olfactory blues

2007-01-12T03:25:00.000-06:00

the drugs are wearing off.

downtown smells like heroin and, needless to say, is much cheaper. the snow melts off and sticky black sweat pours into drains everywhere. too cold to snow? yes. savage wind blows my pea coat into the cigarette in my hand, i move it to my lips while my hair is tussled back and i imagine myself in black and white on the cover of something.

it's a fleeting thought, but a nice one.

hangover romance

2007-01-10T02:37:00.000-06:00

November's Bazaar isn't really a bazaar, it's a bar and liquor store across the street from this really cheap, worn out hotel. This really cheap, worn out hotel used to be a piece of history, and I guess it still is ... the only history I've made there is smoking heroin off of stolen foil and falling asleep and waking up in quick succession five minutes at a time. These hours usually span the "early morning."

Unimportant.

November's Bazaar is cold, colder than any bar should be. The bazaar pretends to be home for a thousand people you wished you'd never met. Ever. Not even in reincarnated lives where you don't remember who you used to be or what you cared about. It's a universal loathing.

I slept days at the hotel and drank nights, smoking rolled cigarettes at the bazaar anyway. You never really miss the sun, if you believe you don't have to. Drink a hundred paychecks away and you'll understand. There's nothing to be learned at the millions of places just like the Bazaar that exist all over the world. Nothing but fantasies of exotic ways to take life, yours and others'.

I punch out of the Bazaar around 2am, closing, and smoke black spots of opioids and brown sugar off strips of foil until I pass out.

There's nothing to be learned from the millions of people just like me that exist all over the world. Nothing but fantasies of new and exciting ways to live your life. Fantasies you can't do anything about.

2006-12-09T04:31:00.000-06:00

i did something i shouldn't've.

one or thirty-one ways to get lost

2006-12-01T12:48:00.000-06:00

i guess i'd like to say something to my supposed new traffic as per the writing prompt Holidailies so graciously hooked me up with. i'm 22, never been, religious smoker and proud father of a drinking habit, it's not a problem yet. one day, it might grow up. i wrote a book which the first two printings are now out of print, but i'm told a third printing will be available sometime. the information for that is here.

i'm not sure if there's anything else. you'll find out.

~*~

i haven't been sleeping nights lately, it's too hot or it's too cold or my stomach tells me i haven't been eating my medicine. or something else entirely. i don't do anything, i lie in bed trying at sleep. it works after a couple hours, so i don't have much to complain about.

november didn't even try to kill me this year, and it's not entirely clear if thats good or bad. it's difficult to get a job when your name is john tvarsky. too much baggage, bad names being called and bruised egos. we can't weep for things we've never had.

i want to shamelessly plagiarize denis johnson and john fante, i'd say bukowski also, but i think im doing a pretty shameful job ripping him off already. words are sometimes the only thing i can look at. they help a little.

earlier, in the shower, i decided that i should probably get drunk most of today. this would be a noble pursuit, as my pockets are nearly empty, and completely empty of currency.

well here we go. the twelfth month of twelve. i've already dug my trenches, the mustard gas has been fitted into artillery shells, ready for launch. don't tell anyone, but i'm about to fucking murder this year.

continuing the series where i write about people you and i have never met

2006-11-30T00:25:00.000-06:00

Being hungover wasn't something Roy Almer ignored. Most days were days spent battling them, real life or death jobs. Hammering it out in quiet bedrooms, smoking cigarettes and drinking warm beers to shift the alcohol content back to positive.

Wednesday is a day like any other day when you don't have a job. Roy didn't feel like working, didn't care for grinding sounds. He loathed tiresome, pointless conversations about things he didn't care about.

Roy found himself riding down the barrels of a shotgun one winter night. December. He left the thinking jobs to other men and supplied the buckshot. Mostly he'd point it at someone and they'd whimper, or cry some; he wasn't interested in what sounds they made, only what he could get from them.

Roy Almer is in the passenger seat of a 1972 mustang holding that walnut grip tight. "The snow is really coming down," he's thinking, "but not too bad." Roy and his buddy slipped on black ski masks, black gloves, and dark colored jackets.

They burst into the Quick Trip gas station this side of Gladestone, the clerk thought they were already shooting, instinctively reached for the gun under the counter, and that's when Roy bought it. A couple rounds tore through Roy's chest and arm. His buddy didn't even bother trying to save him. And Roy Almer took his last trip down, that cold night in December, this side of Gladestone.

winter won't be attending THAT party

2006-11-27T01:35:00.000-06:00

Portrait of the author as a fucking asshole. Give it a rest, you can't keep recycling these tired old formulas. War metaphor? Sex metaphor? Liberal use of adjectives, metaphors, similes, and excessively flowery language? Sounds like a roadmap for pure fucking genius. Get off the boat, break your back. Quit making petty excuses. Pick out a favorite suit of clothes.

Enough about me.

We send out mailings every week of every month. Fridays. It's a way of feeling like you're meant to do something, be part of something.

Leonard Remagen hasn't been feeling himself lately. Stuck on the highway, 35 miles of trains running both directions, often at the same time. His wife left him three weeks before they met and ever since he's been playing with cars, running up stairs, pretending he's still human.

Lenny wakes up on a Thursday and gets dressed in yesterdays clothes. Lenny takes thirty minutes getting ready in the morning. He parts his hair on the left, because that's where it was when his mother combed it. He smokes a cigarette he rolled the night before, he drinks a beer and stares into the mirror for another thirty minutes.

Leonard Remagen, aged 29, drives fifteen minutes to a local bookstore and sits there doing absolutely nothing for the next eight hours. He punches out about four in the afternoon with three stolen books. He sits in his car and writes things down. Things that are worse than this (if you can believe it).

Lenny goes home and rearranges the insides of his head with a hot slug from a .38 special.

Lenny wasn't anyone fantastic. He was just everyone you'll ever meet.

2006-11-24T03:28:00.000-06:00

cookums and i are the only ones who read KMCN/P:EC anymore.

this is funny to me.

cook: REAL lumberjacks.

politics of obscurity

2006-11-22T02:55:00.000-06:00

catch-phrase or coherent theory? we'll figure it out together.

2006-11-20T04:18:00.000-06:00

should it bug me that some people don't read this, even though i'd like them to? should it bug me that when i ask people to be honest they say no?

***

i hate it when people say things like "i can't say" when they really mean "i won't say." quit murdering truth in the name of your own cowardess. waking up lonely is just as bad as waking up alone. write those numbers down, take them to the bank.

it's a bazaar, nothing short. i bought a monkey's head over in aisle 12 and a box of prilosec in aisle 3. hocking your wares today? trading some flesh for some obsolescence? it's a design, that way. a promise of my labor for a taste of your skin.

don't warm it up for me, i'll take mine cold any day of the week.

11.17.1973

2006-11-17T10:09:00.000-06:00

today is a very important day.

well, pretty important.

2006-11-15T04:53:00.000-06:00

my lifestyle doesn't afford much glamor, or really any postures of glamor. i am not saying this as a bad thing, more of observational comedy.

i guess i have enough faith in you to let you figure it out for yourself.

2006-11-07T04:51:00.000-06:00

all my socks and underwear are dirty. which is why i dress smartly, so fancy in fact that people i pass on the streets cannot look me in the eyes, but for the fact were they to know i was without undergarments they would openly shun me.

i awoke this morning in a room of blue. blue light shining on blue walls, and i under a blue beadspread. i had no recolection of my whereabouts so i casually entertained the idea that i might be dead. such color coordination cannot be afforded to the living, surely.

while the pounding in my head slowly caught up with me i began to remember.

have you ever rolled a joint and then dipped it into codiene syrup? and surely as you've never done that, you've never smoked it followed by more than a hundred ounces of high gravity ale? perhaps not, but i couldn't keep my hands out of my pockets.

the lesbians i had wound up with (for the past 2 days, no less) assured me that i had vomited out all my toxins and had been on a rigourous water and tomato soup diet. these facts troubled me as i coped with the memories of $20 whores.

i determined in that blue room that i must've died. i couldn't bring myself to come to terms with actual facts. turn on a blender without ice, and let it run for several days. transplant that into the throat of a man (i.e. our protagonist) and you'll maybe be able to fake some meaning.

photologue

2006-10-30T19:43:00.000-06:00

from my recent travels:

a taste:

please, no assuming things.

( the rest is behind this )

2006-10-28T05:59:00.000-05:00

this won't save you and it won't kill you.

you can quit hiding.

2006-10-15T10:53:00.000-05:00

people mistake my single closed eye as an attempt to correct boozed vision, in reality i'm half way to nodding out.

hide your children . . .
fuck, hide yourself.

2006-10-11T05:44:00.000-05:00

god told me in my last fourteen dreams; the first snow of the season, i just don't care for you anymore. it's not like any human, male or female or somewhere in between could take a treatment like yours to the bank.

it's a game set match, this stupid thing is over conversation, tired of the sound of one anothers' voice; not entirely a relationship built on trust. keep on keeping that secret and maybe it won't rear its ugly head. the lie is, however, that i keep telling you that it's really really a secret.

the lie keeps lying to my face, but mostly to your back. you'll make and lose friends thirty-five thousand times worse and less-sincere than i ever could dream of being. it's a bad check that you cashed without a second thought.

so tell me, who's the real sucker here?

2006-10-05T05:08:00.000-05:00

give me your beating heart, it's not a thing you'd be able to regret. your knees will buckle and you'll wish this spell hadn't been cast over you.

give me your beating heart and you'll praise the day i was born (valentine's day in this case). it's a blessing you'll be glad to have. those years of catholic dogma burned in your skull washed away. we'll have shared dreams no one can take away from us and we'll watch terrible movies no one could stomach.

it's a trade, nothing for nothing. absolute for a non-absolute. and if the words i am speaking strike no chord with you, then we're done already.

2006-10-03T04:18:00.000-05:00

are these feelings familiar to you? a time when you can't feel the daylight burning your skin? a place where what you say doesn't matter, can't be heard?

it's a painful place to be, spending the paycheck at liquor stores, bars, and bus stops. a place where you can't say anything because there's no one to listen. i can't pretend i'm hard, but i can't pretend i don't know anything either.

could you take the silence for all these decades just the same?

i wish i knew.

2006-10-01T03:25:00.000-05:00

you're a shot of whiskey, baby, you give me goosebumps.

words spoken to deaf ears. wishing i could muster the courage to actually be a man. i'm not afraid to tell people i consider myself a 22 year old boy. we're born from adversity. a good friend of mine knows what i'm talking about at least.

it was an accusation, not a question.

why'd he leave right up and die? well, it was a murder. so the question would change.

if this doesn't make any sense to you that's fine, because it makes less sense to me.

2006-09-21T21:23:00.000-05:00

if i had any money i'd be drinking a beer right now instead of going to sleep early for work.

what a fucking life this is.

2006-09-16T03:29:00.000-05:00

there are corpses of failed projects everywhere, smiling back at me in a grim reminder that no matter what i set my mind to i will inevitably abandon it.

it's called a lack of "follow through."

name one to thirty-five things in the past 22 years you saw all the way through. save the paper, the time, the synapses firing. lessons in futility. brazen idols stacked in a corner somewhere waiting to be discovered for the garbage can. keep writing something down, keep making it pretend to be something real. when all you want to do is create and all you come up with are deformed masterpieces you know something might be terribly wrong.

you're one of those mental castration jobs, the kind that know moving it in and out won't do shit, but they keep on keeping it on anyways.

this isn't a blueprint for anything better, just the outline for something undone.

infologue

2006-09-13T21:05:00.000-05:00

quiet night, no humans in the house. boiled a pot of pierogies, drank six miller high life beers. dessert was three keystone lights. television surprisingly entertaining, discovery channel at least.

continuing quest for ~$30,000.

sometimes i write it down, mostly i just lay around.

still sleeping far too much.

that's it.

2006-08-30T14:26:00.000-05:00

i dread going to sleep, but loving sleeping. i love winter, but hate being cold. i love the rain, but my shoes have holes in them. i love my family, but hate being with them. i love road trips, but hate driving. i love to drink, but hate bars. i love music, but hate the radio. i don't put much thought into what i wear, but i have a ton of clothes. i miss people, but not enough to call them. i love learning, but hate school. i'm a sucker for entertainment, but hate tv. i hate money, but can't get enough of it. i hate frauds, but i'm one too. i hate jealousy, but i'm extra-jealous. i love the scene, but hate going to shows. i love to smoke, but hate the tobacco industry. i wish i was vegetarian, but i love eating meat.

"
+: i killed a girl, it was no accident. put a gun to the back of her head and blew her brains right out the front. i was in love.

-: i strangled mine.

+: did you love her?

-: she was okay.
"

2006-08-29T01:55:00.000-05:00

are you going to be my salvation? im not ready for any kind of arms treaty with you. you can't make any mistakes that i won't see. it's not a thing something something that most anyone would understand.

salvation? yeah right, what a fucking joke. there's nothing left for most any of us to really really involve ourselves in. we pretend that what's actually happening is something thats pretty true and sacred but the bottom line is, and this is a quote, the one you love is lying to you.

some sense could(n't) be made

2006-08-22T10:34:00.000-05:00

i tried to quit shaving, it lasted about a week. my facial hair looks like some diseased dog beard. as much as i want a sweet handlebar moustache i just can't have one, no matter how much i cry or how ever many candles i light at that church that stays open 24 hours.

i guess maybe that's some kind of metaphor for a larger something something.

also,
i've unplugged the telephone so many times it won't plug back in. microcosm of something larger?

hard to say.

obscurity

2006-08-19T02:52:00.000-05:00

Take us
we were never children
like your children
we do not understand love songs
like your inamorata

2006-08-01T22:02:00.000-05:00

what good's owning a gun if you can't even murder police with it? murdering time, i guess.

i was sitting across from some strange guy with a beat up, piece filth atop his head and giant tobbacco hued sunglasses. he was asleep when i sat down and began writing in my moleskine. he woke and stared and stared and stared at me. i put my sunglasses on and stared back. nothing was worth writing, only looking.

it was impossible to make anything. and impossible to quit staring.

his skin was torn and unleashed against some cruel american desert. he'd seen things i'd pretended i've seen for years. it's good to be a bit crazy, he said nothing and i meant nothing, or maybe everything; hard to say. eyes hidden behind mirrors forcing me to look at him looking at me. i laughed it off, he's probably compiling newspaper clippings and writing angry letters he'll never send.

he's probably this town's only genius.

2006-07-22T03:19:00.000-05:00

im ready to give this all up. i don't know how, but i'm ready.