Kyle Gater

A moment of pain is worth a lifetime of glory.

Hashtag Poem

"On the dock where you board the boat for Ship Island, someone will take your picture: the photograph--who you were--will be waiting when you return."

"I returned to a country battlefield where colored troops fought and died-Port Hudson where their bodies swelled and blackened beneath the sun-unburied until earth's green sheet pulled over them, unmarked by any headstones."

"Homo sapiens is the only species to suffer psychological exile"

America

The conscious shout of all that is white is "It's Great to be white." The conscious shout of the slack in Black is "It's Great to be white." Thus all that is white has white strength and yours.

And they await, across the Changes and the spiraling dead, our Black revival, our Black vinegar, our hands, and our hot blood.

We Sing sin. We Thin gin. We Jazz June. We Die soon.

A policeman who shot down a ten year old in Queens stood over the boy with his cop shoes in childish blood and a voice said "Die you little motherfucker" and there are tapes to prove it.

Find someone like yourself. Find others. Agree you will never desert each other. Understand that any rift among you means power to those who want to do you in. Close to the center, safety; toward the edges, danger.

The massive weight of Uncle's wedding band Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer's hand.

There are so many roots to the tree of anger that sometimes the branches shatter before they bear.

I do not dwell within my birth nor my divinities who am ageless and half-grown and still seeking

who cut their wrists three times successively unsuccessfully, gave up and were forced to open antique stores where they though they were growing old and cried