Thanksgiving Prayer

By WILLIAM BURROUGHS

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

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 vulgarise and falsify until the bare lies shine through.
Thanks for the K.K.K.
For nigger-killing lawmen feeling their notches.
For decent, church-going 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 on drugs.
Thanks for a country where nobody is allowed to mind their own business.
Thanks for a nation of finks.
Yes, thanks for the memories - "Alright, 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...