Beyond Uncommon Boundaries

By Sherry Marie Gallagher

This second volume of prose and poetry

invites readers into the life journey of this poet, storyteller and songwriter -- her evocative thoughts and imagination lead you through a patina of different landscapes and boundaries.

'Dedicated to all those who've still got the urge for going when the leaves are falling on the ground'

She Explorer ©Shers Gallagher

"She is young between the thighs
and old between the lips.
A baby face, nonetheless
still eager to use and be used....
well, just a little.
Life, to her, is yet an experiment to master.
She will not, shall
wants not,
to be conquered by her dreams
before she has made her ascent to Everest"

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: May 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9781312513242

Book preview

Sherry Marie Gallagher

Beyond Uncommon Boundaries:

Poetry and Prose

Copyright © 2023 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 non-commercial 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.

For more information please contact:

MEDIATOR MEDIA

R. SCHUMANLAAN 73

4463 BD GOES

THE NETHERLANDS

E: [e-mail]

W: www.mediatormedia.nl

ISBN 978-1-312-51324-2

Beyond Uncommon Boundaries

© Sherry Marie Gallagher 2023

eBook

Cover designer: Rob Bitter

Also by Sherry Gallagher:

Uncommon Boundaries

Boulder Blues

Murder On The Rocks!

Death By Chopstick

The Poisoned Tree

Dancing Spoons and Khachapuri

Aisling Books

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Mediator Media

The Netherlands

CONTENTS

PART ONE - Moving on

7       Following the Tao: a rough guide

10       Midnight Jam at Shers’ Place

10       I Never Meant to Hurt You

11       Cuchulain [Cuhoolin]

15       She Explorer

15      Fire on ice in a tempest’s meadow

16      Tick Tock

16      Road Trip

17      The Girl at the Window

18      Creature of the Flushed Lagoon

18      We Are Not Alone

19      A Symphony of Sorts

20      Grand Performance until the Finale

21      Running with Carrot Tops

22      Terminal Wasteland

22      Hush the Halls of Sleeping Poets

23      Old Crone in a Dark Mansion

24      Yesterday I Got the News

25      Ever Ending Story

26      Simple Truth

27      Continent Chasers

28      Update to 'An Honest Bulimic'

30      Rock Along the River

31      Occupancy

32      From My House to Yours This Sunday Morning

33      Looking Out My Window

34      Running Wild and Free

36      Tír na nÓg

38      Raised by a Flyboy Father

38      The Follower of Dreams

43      Icicle Shadows

44      A Gipsy’s Hand

45      The Rodeo Princess and the Cowboy

46      The Day the Fat Woman Never Sings

47      Canvassed Starry Nights

48      Shadows of Smiles and Strings

49      Brother and Sister Song

50      What Is Life?

51      The Littlest Angel who Grew Old and Died

53      PINK –

54      Running Wild and Free

56      A Reflective Moment on Childhood Imprinting

57      Drapetomania Go Forth

58      On Clowning Around

PART TWO – Going Global

60      A Youthful Experience with Travellers

62      We Are Not Alone

63      I Came to Live in Boulder

64      At the School Door

65      My English Gates

66      Fish-lips

67      An Infamous Wee

67      Lilac and Musk

68      Air Space

69      Laura Ashley Days

70      Men in My Life

75      I Am Lakota

76      Barking Mad

77      She Peers Inside Each Window

78      Both Pods Now

79      Hush Hush

80      As We Let Go

81      Never Give Up

82      3 Cheers for Jack the Lad

84      The Soldiers of Mercy

85      My My, Big Fluffy Cat!

86      Oh, So Like the Magpie

87      ‘Tis the Gift

88      A Renewable Life

103      After Storm Matthew

104      An Honest Bulimic-Anorectic

105      The Art of Palm Reading

107      Charing Cross Road 1937

108      Brain Power

109      Children of Light

110      How HUGE is the City of Rotterdam?

PART THREE – Full Circle

113      Hooked on Wallpaper, Peeling Brown

114      In the Wings

115      Fear of the Encroaching Unknown

117      Mother’s Pink Carnation

118      Ophelia Knew What I Did Not

119      My Meeting with the ‘Thin Man’

121      Palate of Spring

122      Sealed With a Kiss

123      The Call

124      The Female Selkie

125      Wisdom of Hendrix and Grant

126      This Valley

127      Family Money Laundering

129      To Daniel – the unsung hero

130      Uh-oh, Spaghetti-Os

131      The Markers That Bind

133      Weather Station

134      Memories of a Family Christmas Past

137      The Day of the Little Brothers

139      Granny, the Sitter

141      Plums of Grandmother’s Garden

142      Family Vacations

144      My Rogue Dad and the Flying Finn Twins

148      I loved You Once When We Were Young

149      We Are Humans For Humanity

151      Bring on the Rain Song

152      Oh, Those Fairies

153      Sleep Well, Little One

154      Today is My Father’s Birthday

157      ABOUT THE AUTHOR - On Creativity

blackbird in the cold.jpg

Dedicated to all those who’ve still got the urge for going when the leaves are falling on the ground

PART ONE – Moving on

Magpie Tales 127-following the Tao.jpg

Following the Tao - a rough guide

© Shers Gallagher

My first teaching term in Beijing I thought I could master at least what I nicknamed 'Yellow Cab Chinese', meaning basic words and phrases I'd need to know to get around the city in a taxi, on a bus or riding the metro. These would be words like 'turn right', 'turn left', 'go straight' and 'stop here'. Rudimentary communication, in other words, is necessary for one not wanting to end up on the other side of town when going shopping at the mall. Yet after only a few weeks of class I was knocking my head against a wall because of hearing myself mixing up my newly spoken Dutch with the Mandarin I was trying to speak. I had immigrated to Holland four years before accepting another international teaching assignment, and one of the requirements of immigration was to pass a language state exam before being allowed citizenship. Having successfully done so had freed me to again accept assignments to teach abroad. Yet the mix up I was now suffering with Chinese is one, I've since been told, that often happens when learning a new language after recently acquiring another. Needless to say, I had to drop the course out of my own frustration and rely on guides and/or words written down on paper next to Chinese characters that I could just point to. Here! Here! I'd say to my perplexed looking driver. I want to go here! And I would rudely point to the characters of my destination in my Chinese phrasebook. Admittedly, it was embarrassing but a way to be out of necessary. Otherwise, the drivers would only yell at me to get out of their cab and I'd be left to my own devices, which weren't always clever in unfamiliar territory.

For the Westerners' convenience, what is called 'pinyin' is a phonetic breakdown and Anglicised spelling of Chinese words and their characters. Properly pronouncing even basic Chinese is another 'kettle of fish'. 

Only when I returned to China for another teaching term did I re-enlist in a course and attempt to at least learn how to count and get my tones right. Learning to count is not just a simple 'one, two, three'. No, you must also know the proper hand signing, which is different than what one does in the West. Local vendors use a lot of body language too, some of which I'll never need to know. Counting, however, is a must when dealing with the locals. And this too can prove initially difficult. The number 8, for example, is pronounced: bā, which is a flat tone. And its hand-signing looks to me like I'm shooting a loaded gun at whomever I'm communicating with - totally inappropriate in my land. And if this isn't unnerving enough, try going into the higher digits with your hand-signing. Or, for that matter, make some change with your coinage!

Chinese is a lovely language regardless of all the painful attempts to master it. The art of learning its basics to me is a lesson in contemplation and patience. It is the understanding of a cultural perspective that each year I am there I try learning as much as I can soak in and be enriched by. Chinese is also full of many syllables, its consonant/vowel rules are so very different from any Western language, be it Germanic or Latin based. This Asian alphabet is not one we Westerners tend to recognise either, its characters deriving from age old pictograms, having merged to form meanings from hundreds of combinations. Standard Chinese only embraces a small portion of them. Mind-boggling, yes, but quite intriguing for a linguist is the very way in which one pens a character. Certain rules must be adhered to when, say, making a top/down, left/right, lift and stroke. And don't even think about stopping in midstream and lifting your pen off the page. It isn't an easy 'dash', 'dot', 'cross your line' and there you go. This is simply NOT done. Not at all. When attempting Chinese one has no choice but to delve into the cultural perspective of the Tao. Only in this way is such a colourful form of communication only begun to be

understood. 

1  = yī  [ye]

2 = èr

3  = sān            

4 = sì [sur]

5 = wŭ

6  = liù [lyoh]

7 = qī [chie]

8  = bā      

9  = jiŭ [lyoh]

10 = shí [shur]

Magpie tales 139_midnight jam.jpg

Midnight Jam at Shers’ Place

©Shers Gallagher

A bowling green for Elvin pins

upon this restless heath

where mangrove punch and pumpkin sweets,

with tricks, complete the treat.

Beware the hob gobs frolicking

a midst the brush and trees.

And watch for waxy witches

who are spilling moonbeam tea,

as you wear your finest mischief

on this hallowe'ed, hallowe'ed eve.

I Never Meant to Hurt You

© Shers Gallagher

I never meant to hurt you

and I hope that you are well.

The room’s begun shrink for me

and the sky’s about to spill.

I miss you mostly in the night

and oft in daylight too,

though gaps are growing wider still

and chasms have their fill.

And yet...

I never meant to hurt you

and I hope that you are well.

The room’s begun shrink for me

and the sky’s about to spill.

and billows and blows across the sea.

Magpie Tales 128-Hound of Culann.jpg

Cuchulain [Cuhoolin]

©Shers Gallagher

Hound of the Culann and the Red Branch of Ulster

Cuchulain is best described as the Hercules of Irish folk legend because he was the biggest and strongest of his people. He was given the name Sétanta at birth, his mother sister to Conor MacNessa, Ulster chieftain and High King of Ireland. His suspected father was not the mortal married to his mother, but the ancient Celtic god Lugh the Long-Armed, who seduced Sétana’s mother by deceit and trickery. 

‘Hound