Mickey Z

Cool Observer

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Thursday, November 23, 2006

William S. Burroughs: A Thanksgiving Prayer

Thanks for the wild turkey and the passenger pigeon…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

(1988)

I wrote a Thanksgiving-related article in 2002, “Giving Thanks in the Land of Denial,” which incorporated this “prayer.” To read it, please click here. Also, here are some classic Thanksgiving postcards.