A Misanthrope Gives Thanks

William S. Burroughs reading A Thanksgiving Prayer. Because it’s not a real holiday without a crabby uncle who thinks the whole thing’s a crock of shit, and doesn’t care who knows it.

(This a Google video, so you may need to click the “Play” button to launch. If the embedded player hates you, the source video is here.)

For John Dillinger
In hope he is still alive

Thanks for the wild turkey and 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 falsify until the bare lies shine through
Thanks for the KKK, 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 Against Drugs
Thanks for a country where nobody is allowed to mind his own business
Thanks for a nation of finks
Yes, thanks for all the memories—“All right, lets 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.

Posted by StrangeAppar8us on 11/26/09 at 10:10 AM • Permalink

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