Uncommon Boundaries

By Sherry Marie Gallagher

A tryptic of the human canvas: longing -- journey -- reckoning in compilations of bitter-sweet and humorous short stories, songs, poetry, travelogues and reflections as the author struggles through and overcomes personal addiction, leading to a successful life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: May 4, 2011
• ISBN: 9781447695165

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Sherry Marie Gallagher

Uncommon Boundaries:

Tales and Verse

Copyright © 2012 by Sherry Marie Gallagher

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

These writings are entire works of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Aisling Books is a subsidiary of Mediator Media. Aislingbooks.com is registered with the Stichting Internet Domeinregistratie Nederland, Arnhem, The Netherlands.

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MEDIATOR MEDIA

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4463 BD GOES

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ISBN 978-1-4478-8735-5

Uncommon Boundaries: tales and verse

© Sherry Marie Gallagher 2012

eBook Edition

Cover designer: Rob Bitter

Also by Sherry Gallagher: 

Boulder Blues

Murder On The Rocks!

Death By Chopstick

The Poisoned Tree

Dancing Spoons and Khachapuri

Dedicated to all my friends who have loved and learned and are still lighting candles rather than cursing the darkness

CONTENTS

CONTENTS …………………….………….....................  2

PART ONE - Longing …………………….………………  6

Night in Lodo ……………………...……………………..   6

Abandoned Mother the Soul Leaves Behind ….…..….  8 Angel in Distress …….…………..…………...............…  8

I Have Drunk in the Living .……………..…………....… 10

The Question …..……………………….……………….. 10

Autumn Musing ……..…………………..……………....  11

Ardy’s Plight at the Privy .………………................…..  11

Joie de vivre …..……………..……………….………... 17

The Claw ………………….……..……………………… 18

Momentary Brilliance ………..…………...……………. 20

What Doth a Woman Desire in a Man? ….…………... 21

August Pining ………………………….……..……...…. 27

Autumn’s Awakening …...……………………………..   28

You Gave Me a Sign .…………………………………… 28

Avatar Meeting ……………………………..………….... 29

Calling Her People Back Home ……….………………. 40

Harsh Thoughts of Winter’s Breath ..………………..… 40

I Simply Love My Friends ..………………….……  .….. 42

Death of the Saint ..………………....………………. …. 42

The Man Who Died Last Christmas …..…..……………48

A Modern Song ………..…………………..…..………... 48

Heaven Has No Smoking Sign ……………….…..…… 49

Junk’s Lament …..………………………………………. 49

Into the Night Rain …….……………………….….……. 50

Letter By Letter …..………………………………...……. 50

I Let Go of Pink Balloons ……………………………….. 53

In the Shadow of Wings ..………………………….…...  54

Dune Walk .………….……………………………….…..  54

Love and Perfection …………………..…………….…..  55

Hair Play .….……………………………………...……… 56

Who Is Behind This Holy War? ………………….…….  56

911 – Remembering the Poor Souls ………………….  57

Horrors Within ………………………………………….... 57

Having Lived and Loved So Deliciously in My Day ….  59

How Rich is That? ………………………………………. 60 

Until the Flowers Bloom ………………………………… 60

Together We have Painted …………………………….  61

Laurel’s Song – minstrel musings ……………………..  61

Renaissance Minstrels …………………………………. 67

Living for the Day …………………………………….....  68

My Crystal Baking Days ………………………………..  69

RSVP To Life – in 3 parts ……………………………… 70

Part 1 ……………………………………….…… 70

Part 2 …………………………………………….  71

Part 3 ………………………………………….… 72

A Symphony of Sorts …………………………………..   73

Minstrel Interrupted …………………………………….   74

Home – a tribute to Gauguin …………………………..  75

Colour Up My World …………………………………….  77

Hippy Wedding ……………………………………….…  78

Winter’s Solstice Love Song ……………………….…..  83

Rhythm Break …………………………………….……..  84

Homesick for Éirinn ……………………………….…….  84

I’m Building My Nest with Flowers …………………….  85

Chagall’s Big Top ………………………………….…....  86

Mother and Child – soft memories …………………….  86

Shadow Play …………………………………….………. 87

Human Metaphor ………………………………………..  88

Making Hay While the Sun Still Shines ……………….  88

Live another Day ………………………………………..  88

Lad from the North Country …………………….…...…  89

No Cure for Me Today ………………………………….  92

Libretto! ……………………………………………….….  93

Stainforth’s River ………………………………………..  94

Otherwise …………………………………………..…....  94

Symphony of the Setting Sun in E-minor …………….. 95

Wee Modern Tale ………………………………….….… 95

In a World …………………………………………….….  99

Yipperty Tides ……………………………………….…..  99

Waxing & Waning ……………………………………….  99

What We Value & Hold Dear …………………………. 100

Over Coffee at the Diner ………………………...……. 100

The Gift …………………………………………………..105

The Sculptor ………………………………………….... 106

The Man ………………………………………………... 106

Solitude of Home ………………………………………. 107

No Measly ‘Tail’ is this Mouse Tale …………..……… 108

MC and Clown ……………………………………….… 111

PART TWO – Journey …………………….……..…… 111

Simple Poem by a Half-Witted Yank ………………… 111

The Quest – Full Circle ……………………………….. 112

Two Cousins at Play ………………………………….. 117

Just a Passerby ……………………………………..… 118

Irish Maeve and her Raven ………………………..…. 119

Negative Exposed ……………………………………... 120

Izzy the International Spider – parts I-V …………….. 121

I – Birth and adventure ……………………….. 121

II – Izzy’s return ……………………………..… 123

III – Dizzy Izzy …………………………………. 126

IV – Onward and upward Izzy ……………….  128

V – There’s no place like home ……………… 130

The Perfect Friend …………………………………….. 132

Professor’s Run ……………………………………….. 133

Rhapsody in Plath – a mimicry ………………………. 135

One Ringy DINGY ……………………………………... 136

A Letter to the Lady of the Manor ………………….… 136

Uncommon Boundaries ……………………………….. 140

Idle Poor and Joining the Ranks of the Unemployed  142

Thunder Rumbles in REM Sleep …………………….. 143

Girl-in-the-box ………………………………………….. 145

A Refugee Returning ………………………………….. 147

Along the Dunes of Winter ……………………………. 148

Come Away, Come Away with Me ……………...…… 149

Prologue to Travelogues – the desperate wanderer   149

An Alien Abroad ………………………………. 152

State University – Moscow, Russia ………… 157

International College – Beijing, China ……… 170

Trainride to Manzhouli – Manchuria, China .. 185

The Ultimate Driving Experience ……………. 189

No More Pencils, No More Books …………… 192

Guesthouse – Foreign Faculty of Experts ….. 194

The People of China – and their Great Wall .. 197

Winding Down the Semester ………………… 200

Finals are Over and Time to Party ………….. 204

Knowing It was Rhetorical ……………………………. 205

Wade in the Water, Chinese Youth ……………….…. 206

There Must be Rules to Caring How You Pee ……... 207

Peking Duck ……………………………………………. 208

PART THREE – Reckoning ………………….…..…... 211

Brick Road Pleasures …………………………………. 211

Retirement Village other than Florida ………….……. 212

Wish You were Here …………………..……………… 213

Grand Performance until the Finale ……………….… 213

I Would Sacrifice ‘EGO’ ……………………………….. 214

The Moon’s an Errant Thief ……………………..….… 215

My fat little Persian, Nikki …………………………...… 217

Chloe’s Lie and the Shadow Walkers ……………..… 218

Mystery Tune Plaguing my Soul …………………...… 220

A Woman’s Fate …………………………………….… 221

Happy Traveller ……………………………………….. 222

Following Today’s Ice Arrow ………………………… 227

Late Summer’s Itch …………………………………… 227

Girl in Treatment ……………………………………… 229

The Lost Year ……………………………………….… 230

When I Stopped Crying …………………………….… 231

About the Author …………………………………….… 233

PART ONE – Longing

Night in Lodo

©Shers Gallagher

Raw joy, raw as rain splashes in puddles at my feet

as I shed the burdensome cloak of adulthood.

I slip into a bar, shadowed by my own clock ticking,

unwinding in the aftermath of Flander’s lace

and forgotten fragments of stimulators now suitable only for church mice.

The music drones youth, but I am not annoyed.

For youth itself sings its own painful dance, powerful as bees.

As for me, my queen is dead and I toast to her pleasant dreams.

The silver evening proceeds in vaporous solitude,

rain drenched,

as innocent as a child’s breath.

My friend and I, we stroll as shadows

innocent unto ourselves in streetwise streams of conscious hubbub.

The sky etches into thunder,

the beauty of nature’s nuance in momentary lightning cascade.

We stop as an encore rising for more.

She does not disappoint us.

Neither does she recognize the audience she is playing to in such commanding performance. We continue our walk, the silent sojourners with smiling faces.

The only ones, we note, queer enough to be out enjoying the rain.

Armoured with our umbrellas, as alien citizens we move on.

We stop for steaming oysters and black beer.

Enjoying the ruse of other’s flirtatious wisdom, a device for coupling,

we eavesdrop across the tables while willingly ignoring our own.

We do not struggle in perfect wisdom: it cannot be bought, nor does it couple.

It simply exists. And ours is the most profound,

an evening spent in appetizers of indifference,

good company and cheap beer.

* Flander's lace is the pattern left inside a glass from the head of a beer.

This poem is in memory of Larry Lee Barnhart

(01 Sept 1952 - 09 April 2004)

Abandoned Mother the Soul Leaves Behind

©Shers Gallagher

I long for the shores

Of a land not distant from her people,

An abandoned mother the soul leaves behind.

Her black-green Cliffs of Moher

with mewing gulls circling round and round.

Walk-whistling lads of golden tongue

tramp about the heather and weathered gorse.

The devil take their Gaelic mother's soul

though they’ll toast her when the workday's done.

Come court me with another round, boys,

While we still have our heads about us.

Crests of creamy stout and peat brown ale,

where neither craic nor creol will drown us.

I long for the shores

Of a land not distant from her people,

An abandoned mother the soul leaves behind.

Her black-green Cliffs of Moher

with mewing gulls circling round and round.

Angel in Distress

©Shers Gallagher

She glides across the ceaseless din

of crowding streets

to seek out crumpled wings

she's seen meshed between all

the bumping, burping, hurling bodies

timed to salutations of feeding frenzy

between cracks of blackened hues.

And she’s grown blind by bedazzlement.

Her wings are lost and she cannot fly.

Groping through distortions

are strange words that do not fit.

She feels their textures,

hears their rhythms,

senses structure

of what sensate nature knows but cannot tell.

She is made drunk by urbanity,

sucked in by humanity

in her quest to know a rainbow’s touch.

That is her goal

while capturing shadows

to wield into light.

Though it is only memory

she finds to mount on moonbeams

and project into refracted night.

Does feeling take on voice?

she asks a passing star-fly.

It flutters back an answer and vibrates in repose.

Searching negatives of soul’s imprinting,

she queries: What images do they make?

The darkroom only answers most bleakly

by displaying no sign of her.

Through hidden shades of what is and what isn’t

she finds no future in what should be,

as wind is only breath,

she gathers.

And so is she, abandoned by her wings.

Thus, what might have been,

yet will not be,

are mere whispers of words

that are nothing more or nothing less

than what sweeps and flows

and billows and blows across the sea.

I Have Drunk in the Living

©Shers Gallagher

I have drunk in the living,

perhaps too much,

as it is a fine elixir and noble aperitif.

The shadows are always my own undoing

after all the costumes come off

and hang worn and wrinkled on lean and wiry props.

Lone wolf am I and doomed to wander

the depths of inner chasms

with their damp smells and empty chests.

I would despair if I had not been fated to the light.

And so I say a fleeting prayer to the rising sun

and thank the simple sparrow that,

along with my flighty friend,

I am today counted among the living.

The Question

©Shers Gallagher

You are beautiful as a summer day

that sets softly upon the horizon

and so pleasing to the eye.

Yet such beauty is of a fleeting moment.

The eye blinks and then it's gone.

I am beautiful like the autumn chill

coated in many colours.

Who now will look upon me

and see treasures deep within the folds?

Only wizards, perhaps, or unearthly sprites.

For isn't it more a mortal pleasantry

to enjoy the teasing scent a flower brings

before it ripens, withers and fades

than to look where sunsets cast only longing shadows?

Autumn Musing

©Shers Gallagher

Strong shadows mark the walls

and make them gleam like counting stones

on these lazy Indian summer days. 

I watch the sky as autumn takes wing 

in vivid patterns of migration.

And I'm alive, so alive

to sing in the refrain.

Ardy’s Plight at the Privy

©Shers Gallagher

A large Irish family filled up two of the long pinewood bench tables at the Hare and Hunter - the small medieval fairground restaurant that had a larger than average terrace, catering to the sit-down crowds of wandering festival goers. This particular family appeared to be drinking more than eating, which wasn’t uncommon in the sweltering heat of a midsummer’s day in the shire.

I sat at the table’s far end, furthest from the congested masses, as it was my short pause from working the lanes as a paid entertainer in fantasy costume, blowing stardust on delighted children, getting into mischief with the locals, and tickling tin whistles and whatnot – all the things one could imagine of a proper fairy of a local shire. During my pause, however, I didn’t want to be bothered for fairy wishes and the like. Instead, I ordered a pint, hoping for a frosty mug of very cold beer while watching the family celebrate what looked to be a birthday party with all the ‘for he’s a jolly good’ rounds they were singing. It didn’t take long for one of the men to eye another and smile at me. I was used to the attention, mostly because of my unusually feathered fairy wings made for me be a festival friend named Tailor Taylor the swatch and waistcoat maker. But I just called him Ty for short, as most of the rest of the shire did. And it was a brilliantly crafted set of wings that curved and flowed to allow all the soft, white feathers to flutter in the occasional breeze. Oh, thank God for those breezes.

I lifted my glass to the man and took a relished gulp that temporarily cooled my very human body. He moved down a slat or two in hearing distance of me and asked; ‘So’s, you hear the one about the old couple married for 35 years?"

I shook my head that was covered in a wreath of berries and flowers. One of the petals detached and alighted on his face. He blew at it and looked to the eldest members of the group. ‘Like me mum and dad there, they were celebrating their sixtieth birthdays."

Congrats then! I lifted my half-emptied glass to the couple, both with grey twinkling eyes. And they did the same back at me, draining their own.

The man went on with his story, saying: Suddenly a fairy joined the party.

Now where have I heard that one before?

Ah, he told me. Now, this fairy said: ‘Because you’ve been such a loving couple over all these years, I’ll grant you each one wish.’ The wife told the fairy herself wanted to get away from her dish-washing machine and travel round the world. The fairy waved her wand and BOOM! The tickets were in the old woman’s hand.

I raised a brow that had been pencilled in to look like an alien’s if I weren’t the festival fairy. I wish I could do that trick.

Don’t we all, me darlin’ fairy. At least you’ve got wings…and a nice pair of them at that.

Mind yourself, I said with a smile, or I’ll be turning you into a frog.

Eavesdropping on our conversation, the rest of the party broke into ribald laughter. He’s a royal toad already! called out one of the other men.

And the one by me eyed the other with glee, turning back to finish his story. Yet, the man paused for a minute before confessing to the fairy. ‘Well, d'you know,’ he said, ‘I'd like to have a woman 30 years younger than myself!’ At that the fairy picked up her wand and BOOM! If he wasn’t a day over 90.

I laughed and drank up. My break was not all that long and I needed to find the loo, or ‘privy’ as we shire folk have learnt to call it during festival hours. I waved goodbye to the jolly partiers and left for the southwest corner of the site and one where a makeshift row of hutch-like covered toilets decorated the outlying area for all not wanting to go ‘wee, wee, wee all the way home’. It’s difficult for a fairy-costumed actor to actually take time off from entertaining the crowds without being disturbed. After relieving myself I’d planned to hide out in one of the quiet nooks and crannies I’d found early on in the season. Other entertainers soon found them too. And they often joined me there for a bit solace, picnicking and jocularity. It was all in good fun, and we’d nicknamed these areas our outdoor ‘greenrooms’.

Festival planners, if they’re good ones, attempt to modify the facilities needed to manage the large amount of people participating in the fair – be they paying customers, caterers, craftspeople or entertainers – to be in keeping with the medieval décor. Yet the fantasy world isn’t always as easy to maintain as one might believe, and the results are sometimes laughable at best. Shire privies were always set discretely out of the way, and their wood-covered construction was rustic yet functional. Entering the privy area meant going through a gate marked ‘Ye Old Privies’, of course. And the first thing one saw was a big cauldron-like washbasin that ran water out of a hidden spigot, resembling a natural spring. Hanging to the left and the right of the cauldron were huge soap and towel dispensers. Obvious solecisms such as these were allowed for hygienic purposes.

It always takes a fairy a bit of finagling to readjust her tights and wings, but I was feeling much better when I exited, heading for the fountain. And it was there I saw a little boy I recognised from the Irish party at the