Happy Thanksgiving

A Thanksgiving Prayer
by William S. Burroughs
Thanks for the wild turkey and the passenger pigeons, destined to be shit out through wholesome American guts.
Thanks for a continent to despoil and poison.
Thanks for Indians to provide a modicum of challenge and danger.
Thanks for vast herds of bison to kill and skin leaving the carcasses to rot.
Thanks for bounties on wolves and coyotes.
Thanks for the American dream,
To vulgarize and to falsify until the bare lies shine through.
Thanks for the KKK.
For nigger-killin’ lawmen, feelin’ their notches.
For decent church-goin’ women, with their mean, pinched, bitter, evil faces.
Thanks for “Kill a Queer for Christ” stickers.
Thanks for laboratory AIDS.
Thanks for Prohibition and the war against drugs.
Thanks for a country where nobody’s allowed to mind their own business.
Thanks for a nation of finks.
Yes, thanks for all the memories — all right let’s see your arms!
You always were a headache and you always were a bore.
Thanks for the last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human dreams.

0 thoughts on “Happy Thanksgiving

  1. It’s always a pleasure to read the Prince of the Rod-riders! Even though you might get branded as a negativist, i think it’s good to ‘rain on the parade’ occasionally and let people know their thinking is fucked. Was it Rousseau or Kierkegaad who said we live in the opinions of others so much that our consciousness of self is merely a sum of looking through others eyes…??? Individuality, what is it? ..where is it?
    It’s like Iraq…when we get done spreading ‘freedom’ there, can we get some here in the U.S.?!? Mankind lets down eternally, almost enough to squash any embers of hope. There’s only one evil…ignorance; and one good…knowledge. (Socrates). How can 59 million people be so dumb? –you got it!

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