Whirl

All fallen leaves of light's descent
We send upon the hardest bent
And fall again lest we be known
Nonce are others for the throne
When seeking once and finding sought
Forever seek what justice wrought
Albeit pained as some see fair
Never was my prison there
A cell of air would keep me still
Were it not for winter's chill
Now with me is captive bliss
Found solely in the fleeting kiss
Thrice be damned and twice be too
I tarry naught but dread for you
The hearth I spent to divine fire
Only to suffer at harm's desire
Now and now, turn here again
To my unending abrupt chagrin

Getting Chillier 'ere

Still in teh IZ peeps. It has become Groundhog Day, with few exceptions. Much love to all, and a reminder..... leave me alone @yahoo.com I can't check Myspace very often.....as in, almost never. :(

jesus we have newbs

and n00bs

Cura, Corny Knuss Bits? Or how about you just stop not caring so much you wound me? Would it honestly kill you to give a damn about me everyday?

:P



CMT - Hope you're well

AMB- Love ya

SMM-Love your new pics, very cute but they don't even come close to doing you justice. (Not that any camera ever could)

Miss all you folks

Communication and address

Okay all,

Here is the address for both US Postal Service and for Fed-Ex and such. (Those shipping DHL/UPS/RPS/Fed-Ex or any other package company, use the second underlined address for it please) If you are sending shoebox packages or smaller, use the first italic address ( USPS).But, since no one uses it, I am gonna make it unreadable!!!! yeah!

SSG Tucker, Kevin M.

ICE/JIDC Camp Cropper

Unit 42129

APO, AE 09342

SSG Tucker, Kevin M. (JIDC)

Bldg. 606

Camp Cropper

Unit 42129

APO, AE 09342



Also, please use leave me alone @yahoo.com to send me any further messages that need responses, as I can access it more often, including from work. Myspace, I can only get to once every few days now. Thanks, and much love!!!!!



Kevin

Break from story to update folks

Yup, in Kuwait. All is well. Hot like before. :) Phones are too expensive here, I will call once I am in Iraq. Much love. Someone try to tell my mother I am ok, please. I could not get a hold of her before I left, I think she was the only one I never talked to. Anyway, gotta go get some grub. Love.

PLS-7Z continued

As I climb the ladder to the cockpit, I receive a transmission in my earpiece: "Cancer Lead, Cancer Lead, Zodiac."

"This is Cancer Lead, go ahead, Zodiac."

"Proceed with Cancer Trident to Phase line Bravo, Mark Stat 32, over."

"Copy, enroute." After I confirm receipt of the transmission, I shoehorn myself into the cockpit of the 35 ton war machine and cycle up my secondary lasers to beam a powered down version of a warshot. Larger mechs have additional arrays, but on a "light" mech like the Carapace, there is barely enough room for the weapons, armor and equipment needed to talk some mechwarriors into actually entering combat whilst pilotting one.

I toggle the Multi-track system and both the left and right arms track in a short arc, one aimed at the mech one-point-five kilometers to my west, the other at the mech perched just under a kilometer away on a cliff face to my northeast. Both beams lance out, forming a signal and a transmission path upon which I begin to have a conversation with my boys.

PLS-7Z continued

Wooden doors. They would be a sign of wealth here, if it weren't for the sorry condition. Musta been a long ago transpo for some merchie with more money than sense. No windows on the ceramicrete, just grafitti. How is there is always grafitti in the merc districts? No kids here, just sorry assed gun bunnies and their dupes, marks and bosses. Not even any pilots or mechwarriors here from what I have seen.

Time to see if the cat can drag something in...

The unit rep is a woman. Not too common out here in the periphery, but, as she looks up from a datpad, and lances me with her eyes, I feel like I need to check my AMS for inbound. Not a random hireling, this woman. Gray hair flecked with what must have once been brown, and brown eyes that reflect a million negative emotions combine to tell me this one has seen much.

"You got business, or are you just gonna gape at me 'til I space your ass?"

I have business for her, "Need a lift. Terra."

"Terra ain't on the schedule for a few months. Since you obviously know we are going there, you may want to tell me why you wanna ride with the Blades."

"Can't afford regular fare on a liner....well, can't pay the regular price. All I have is trade in if you are willing."

"Terra is a long way from this rock, and while we are in business for a few C-bills here and there, you don't look to have anything worth the price of steerage in a Union from the Exodus fleet. Change my mind or piss off."

I pull a datapad from my pocket. Nearly 40 years old, it is a relic of my own formative years, and something I only have because I am a one helluva good pack-rat, junk style. "How about this in trade, balance for cost difference to be paid in C-Bills on arrival, Sol system. You don't even have to get me planetfall on Terra, just in-system will do fine." I slide the worn out data pad across her plasteel desk, and she glances at the readout.

"Nice pic, but that ain't proof. Lots of folks claiming they got Old SLDF stocks around."

"It is real enough. In fact it, is already here on this asteroid, and for a holo-proofed ticket on that Hunter you have in orbit, the locker number, combination and sentry decode for the N type Maxi inside to keep unwanted curious types from taking it."

"Okay, so maybe you're serious. How do I know it is legit? Brian Cache, sure, but there ain't no way to prove that. There are only 5 merc outfits I know that have ever acquired Type-4C Man-pack PPCs, and they don't exactly let them go. No house military woulda just let someone take it either. What's the deal? Talk fast, lunchmeat, you got 20 seconds before the cavalry gets here and you explain it to them."

I know she punched the hold-up alarm nearly a minute ago. She did it as soon as I walked in the room. I also know, that it take the OP Police at least 4 minutes to get here, since there are only 8 of them, all obese, and all watching skin vids when I cased their station 45 minutes ago. "I'll humor you. In the future though, please don't bother trying to bluff me. Press page down."

She presses the pad, and her eyes lose focus for a second. "This is time stamped, holographically. Those are real? You have them? Here?" She is hooked, and I know now that the ticket is really gonna cost me what I planned originally. She can't know that it is immaterial to me, but the cash value of what she is looking at in the display cannot be ignored.

"Yes, yes, and yes. You can see that they are not 4Cs now, and there are 12. Considering that I know that no-one has ever sold a confirmed, Type-5, Block C Man-Pack PPC, I figure I can name my price. No more questions. One ticket. One-way. Terra. Myself, and point eight-seven tonnes of cargo in bonded containers. Agreed?"

"Oh sweet, sweet fortune, yes. Agreed, with one request."

"Yes?"

"Your name, please?"

"Call me Marshal."

PLS-7Z continued

This drop really left us in the lurch. After nearly three weeks of no support, and only three burst-comm transmissions, Betty and I have only gotten the bare minimum of information. The 255 BR (Assault) has gotten nothing but shafted by a command structure that wants to watch us succeed while safe in their little domiciles a few parsecs away. Were it not for the capital ships retrofitting with advanced HPG capability, we wouldn't even know that much. The Sullivans is not a battleship, but she is a ship of the line, and in the newly reconstructed capital navy of the human race, she is something to behold. I'll never bitch about the Navy again, knowing that those poor bastards spend so much time in those cramped quarters. It wouldn't be so bad if they could have a little self determination, but knowing that their whole existence might be snuffed out by an errant or well placed shot from planetary orbital guns, or the capital weapons of another ship of the line.......I'll take my Betty any day.

We still have approximately seven minutes until contact. That is such a short lifetime to wait on a battlefield. So many hours spent listlessly patrolling sectors and bases to be punctuated by such relentless and devastating assault from legions of petty insurrectionists. Betty and I would give real money for a chance at a stand up fight.....

PLS-7Z Polaris

Dust lifts in small clouds from the soles of my boots. Boots.....my these have travelled afar. I chuckle to myself as I contemplate how they would see the world and what they would say if they could speak. Perhaps a thanks for avoiding feces when possible, and maybe an admonition to attempt the same with other piles of the fecund? Who knows. Maybe they are just content with being there, supporting me.

Where are we travelling today? Another far away place in the voids of terror and grief? A seldom found spot in the expanses of joy and pride? We'll see when we get there. As for now, the grit and sweat I swipe from my brow seems to be the focus of my world. There is a small twinge of regret as I realize that every swipe removes a countless number of my own skin cells. Microscopic peices of me scattered across the universe. Heh. More than a few drops of blood too....mucous for the maintenance of this fragile shell....solitary tears on occasion. I can ill afford more than one at a time, and those rarer than the full eclipse of Sol.

A warming crescendo builds in the distance. They are on the move. I turn and regard the silent menace of my partner. She's the most dependable part of my world, enfolding me with her gentle yet firm caress when I gird for battle. We have been through much together. A multitude of worlds and a plethora of enemies. She bears the scars across her stressed ferro-fiberous plating, at least a dozen repaintings in the past year to try and re-affix a visual complement to her electronic warfare and passive stealth camouflage systems cannot mask the patches and refits. Other wounds she has borne only reveal themselves by the careful eye of an expert technician...those deep inside her core, the replaced heat shields and cryogenic systems from an engine critical strike more than 3 years ago on Luthien. Her injuries have gone deep time after time. Mine lie deeper still, I fear........ My remorse, my anger, my vengeance, to be hidden in her cockpit behind my interface helmet, to be melded with her fury and power on the field of battle. Soon it will be time again to breach the walls. Soon.

Vectored Somewhere

Meander where? I followed the only true course I couldn't plot.

You wanted some too? HA! Divine MY inspiration will you......

Hyper-velocity, low altitude. Screaming in over those ramparts we watch.

Crackle and die as embers in a fire we started for our own vindication

The thunderhead announces its siblings

Rolling throughout the peace meal of the infinte bounty

Surge and swamp

Edge over my sluice directing the last vestiges of price

Phalanx.......Gee wiz. Where did your tumult go?

Online with the muttering of a million songs

Blurred images of their imagination

Stark screams the herald

Choir sit. Your hand is at timing. Know ye not?

*laughter*

What have I done?

How did this happen? I now have soldiers, valiant men and women of the best fiber this nation may EVER produce referring to me as if I were their leader. Am I truly this "Sergeant Tucker" of whom they speak? I cannot imagine such a responsibility but yet I know it is mine to bear. May God grant me the wisdom and strength to be this indomitable leader they believe me to be. Please. I beg, do not let me let THEM down when times are tough and more is at stake than a simple days' work........... What, oh what, can I do to aspire to this seemingly simple trepidation. I need the strength with which so many others have gifted me over the years. Gwen, Allie, Mom, Dad, Grandpa, Papa, Grandmommy, Nina, I need you. More than I may ever suspect, for I know only one thing: I AM NOT WORTHY.

And so

I see the long road ahead. Alone and soldiering. I will make war.

I hereby strike love from my lexicon, as it has never found chance in my realm. Chance was all I asked, not even the reality.

Very well. Humanity lacks its supposed redemption when I peruse its pages. Nothing more than the ashen fall of bygones remains.

I had so much, I so believed. Falsehood never did become me. Even self-deception.

Mal fet. Burn, chevalier.

Time to be going

Gonna be gone for a bit. Not that it matters to more than Allie. 5th ring of Hell here I come.....weeks....I'm gonna go bat shit there. I hate it. I know what I want, lotta good it does me. Took me long enough to know for sure. Now I don't even doubt. Oh well. Never? I just don't know. 16 JUN 08 - YES NEVER, YOU STUPID ROTTEN LOUSY WORTHLESS PIECE OF EMOTIONAL WASTE! Why did I even bother looking under the hat when it came in? I deserve to suffer all this and more for failing to learn my lesson the first time(s)....

On their behalf

Since they no longer wish to indulge in my potential

Various limits exposed in real time

Gone again comes the wreaking

Peaceable be

The leading one is mine

Astride the line

Vacate the vacuum

Waltz into rhythm

Left foot there

Right foot further

Mind a blur

Mono-molecular serendipity

One-way street

The temporal character of human

As I sat and read today, an innocent approached. Whilst imbibing my caffeine, and relishing my nicotine, I was provided a simple, fleeting glimpse of the beauty that remains no matter what travails parallel. I didn't learn her name, or that of her brother. Her younger sisters name is Nicole. Such bright eyes. When offered a flower, so simply and sincerely, I accepted. Random kindness of the purest sort. Three young children. All with the most concise inroads into the tumultous mind of a soldier in his state of ungrace. Just a small violet bloom. Scrounged from the surroundings of material trappings that simply cannot compare to that superb pleasure of clearest devotion to curiousity and unabashed life.

Nice relief, as not bas-relief.

Vices

So, it has been said differently, but it means the same: Advice is the worst Vice.

I disagree.

Love is the worst vice. At least, it seems to be mine.

Would I be better off hollow? Empty? Selfish?

What is your vice? -drinking, smoking, cursing, etc do NOT count, those are fleeting....I mean a REAL Vice.....

Not really then, but later, and now, as I am turning

to the respite. There I recline into the dreamscape. Whither, I know not, nay, less how, but I seek you. Yours are a tumult and mayhap a truth. Mine are my dominance, as I am never thwarted whence I alight. I abandone mine to stand astride your path of fears. Mine will awaite my resurgence there.....The beginneth 'o my eve is the nigh of thine, I shall come to you. Ye shall possess my guarded pauldron to alight the visage I so value thereupon. My shield a revetment, my sword free to sojourn. Heart captured and soul driven.

Whence Cometh

Immolated once, by the downpour

Drenched, by the embers

Forgotten time and again by the rememberance

Remembered by a lost legacy

Feel me, stone

Hold me, emptiness

Meandering through the peace of my restless mind

Stand aside, ocean

Submit, mountain

Sought upon my endless voyage

Variegated time and again the same

Simulated reality to keep me dependable in my unpredictability

How did you get here, lonesome leaver?

Why did you stay, abandoner?

In the name of anonymous, give me something worthless!!!!!!!!

What don't you understand, dreamer?

This is YOUR nightmare I dream of, not mine.........I am come

Need saving? Oh, hell, why didn't you say so?

Call on me, I'll leave a message to get you the thing you least want

I'm good at that

But I am better at being less than the rest, and more than YOU'D ever expect!

Define the meaning of being me-what has more value than an answer?

Did you see this as a conundrum?

I heard it was deafening

Of course, you could have just told the truest lie possible

Would that work?

Does a slave work?

Does and employee slave?

Behind the eyes of children, we find the truth we once thought we should have been but now admit can never be....

Why is that?

Did I lose something intangible? Did you?

I can't fix your mistakes

I can't make you see that your past is not my future

Try and try again

Never leave the keeping

Faith is only misplaced when it is replaced

Much too

*Yawns* Me tired.



Much too divested of time to be as, and do as, I please. I consistently discover myself wandering in reverie of the amazing nature of the people in my life. Perchance random folk, but truly my pattern's stitching and strands. Those with whom I work, to the loves I have lost and in so learned, and moreover even than any other, those loves that have never abandoned me in my mistakenly human actions-you are what makes me....ME. I am proud to be who I am, and prouder still that I call so few, and yet such a stalwart few, friends.

Just a reminder

I am alone, not lonely. Single. Unattached. NO LOVE INTEREST!!!!! I can't have one anyway, as time has shown. Add to that, the fact that I am in the army, and it keeps me rather.....ahem....mobile....and well, who the fuck wants to deal with that?

Not everyone who should is reading this, but hey, some might.

I love my friends. All of them. There are many people that are 'friends' and there are a select few that are far more. I love them more, no offense to the rest.

I have siblings. They are not the same, and I do not love them the same.

Some of my friends have been romantic interests of mine in the past. They are not now. I did not stop loving them. If anything, it has allowed me to recognize how strongly I care about them, even more than I ever thought I could.

My other friends? My love for them has grown too, over time. I consider some to be brothers, and some to be sisters, but I do not love them that way. I love them in a different, sometimes stronger, way. Because they CHOOSE me as a friend. Family cannot choose.

One who chooses to love you, one who TRULY loves you, for you, and no other reason, can, when the chips are down, be worth more than all the family one could wish for......If you read this, and don't understand it, sorry.

Those that may love me

Thanks. Maybe I don't say it often enough. I am glad you are out there. You save me time and time again. Sometimes way before I even need it.

Breaking

Another day, another brick. Mortar is a bit salty, and sparse. This was no cask of Amontillado, and no one is being walled in, for certain.

Cause to thine misery I do offer my countenance, as nary a worthy one. Bit back from tongue forevermore the trying note. Twas only I sought most incremental reciprocity, which was too much for my honesty put paid. Gifted instead, he, who places no value in it so much as I would live for those simple three.

Things are just going

straight some days, crooked others. I'm not crooked, mind you. A little bored maybe, but only because I keep spending TONS of time doin things I would rather not be doing, heh. They do need to be done though......at least I am useful somewhere, and I haven't made anyone miserable in a few days (I think, I could be wrong). Pretty tired all around. Gonna have to keep this up for a while, and, in fact, increase the tempo too.....'No rest for the weary' (I prefer "No rest for the wicked." but 'weary' is the original. In case any of you read this, and have felt left out lately, I'm sorry, I am just really busy. Much love to many, greatest to a few.......later.

Where does one go from there?

Depends on where there is....... Hope? Success? Steps in the right direction? Yeah, sure. What if you can see the direction divergent, and wish to will it anon? Do you succeed there? Methinks it truer and simpler to simply stalk the shadows, striking matches when needed, and lighting the prisms when called upon...... Flights of fancy are seldom fancy. Some things you think are complicated, are just complex. There really only is one road through the labyrinth for each of us. Your perspective is your reality, no harm in trying to make it objective, or is there?