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The Poetry of Alan V.
Galloway
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About The Author:  Alan V.
Galloway: Master Chef at Galloway's on Fountaneau
Street in New Orleans makes short stories too. He was
kind enough to allow us to post an original at Literary
Masters, Inc. and it won our first award for
"Best
Message"  in a short story. If ever in "The Big Easy"
you are invited to visit with Alan for a great breakfast
or dinner and hear some of his poetry, which he calls
his literary desserts. And now you can dine on a few
poems by Alan V. Galloway.
HAVE YOU SERVED YOUR COUNTRY TODAY?
FROM MY MOTHER'S HANDS
MY MOTHER'S MAN

"Have You Served Your
Country Today?"

A land of freedom and opportunity . . .
"Then why am I not completely free?" you ask.
Why do
you allow the color of your skin
To determine whether
you lose or win?

I've found something that gets me high,
Something that lets me sing,
Something that lets me strive,
And something that lets me fly.

Work, and the pleasure derived therefrom,
Never allowing someone to do for me,
Taking away my will, my soul, and my wealth,
What I should be doing,  for myself.

There is no slavery more binding than Welfare.
No stigma more black than Affirmative Action.
Ask not what others can do for you.
Ask what you can do for yourself.

© by Alan V. Galloway
"From My Mother's Hands"

Life is but a fleeting moment,
Like a feather in the wind,
One reaches for it with a happy heart,
And sometimes finds but empty hands.

Grasp and obtain it, if you can.
It's not if you do, it's that you do.
Therein is the defining moment,
To reach for it, with confident hands.

Then shall we own, all that we can.
All that life is intended to be;
Treasure each and every moment,
You may have spent, at your mother's knee.

What she gave was priceless and sincere,
What we keep, we keep as sons.
There is no joy, in what is lost,
Only in what we retain, when day is done.

No handouts from those who play so grand,
'Twas she who made the way, opened a door;
So now I touch her cheek, with grateful hands,
"Mom, you have lifted my heart, as ever before."

  © by Alan V. Galloway
"My Mother's Man"

It puts me in a trance,
A whirlwind, a fantasy;
And every day I wake up
It's the first I have to see.

Whenever fate clouds my world,
And brings me to my knees;
It turns my darkness into light,  
So I can always see.

I am too strong to be held down,
So tall and straight I always stand;
In my mirror, it's there for me to see,
Something Momma called, her little man.

For my country, I did fight,
Always there to take a stand;
And upon return, to college, my earned right,
A stranger, in a strange land.

They turned my rifle into a spoon,
Made me rush, so fast, around the room;
Learned to carve with a different knife,
Till I became a soldier, with a different life.

All her prayers answered, in a single tree,
Her greatest wish fulfilled, someone just like me.
And now I see what she did see, upon my birth so grand,
I cannot see a different way; I am my mother's MAN.

           © by Alan V. Galloway
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