Mickey Z

Cool Observer

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Wednesday, November 23, 2005

William S. Burroughs: 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:
http://tinyurl.com/aneh5

Thanks, Expendables, for making this blog a happening place in 2005…
Much obliged.