Thanksgiving Prayer

[Tom Hickey]

While searching for a copy of the text I noticed that waste.org has a copy
of Burroughs' perennial favorite up at

http://waste.org/prayer.html

I think to fully appreciate this you have to hear one of the recordings of
Burroughs reading it.
His cynical drone conveys it all...

A Thanksgiving Prayer
(For John Dillinger, in the hope he is still alive;
    Thanksgiving Day, November 28th, 1986.)

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.