Thanksgiving Prayer William S Burroughs

Thanksgiving Day, Nov 28,1986 first appeared in the chapbook Tornado Alley, with illustrations by S. Clay Wilson. Gus Van Sant then made a short film of Burroughs reading the text.
This poem resonates today as exposing what has gone horribly wrong in the USA, or maybe what has always been wrong.
Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 28, 1986

William S. Burroughs
For John Dillinger
In hope he is still alive
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 carcass 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.

• Category

  Education

[impressiveminge]

good one mister burroughs

[tuson44]

some truth

[Flamo353]

I totally agree.

[IBMeddling]

@glottis5, William says at the end "thanks for the last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human dreams". Yes, was being sarcastic. I agree with him...

Many Europeans came to the Ameriacas for freedom...did we actually get full freedom?

[CIRCLECIX]

We need another movement like the beats. Our culture has repressed again into the same superficial conformist bullshit of the 50's.

[glottis5]

is he being sarcastic???

[11pinrelay]

"The attempt to silence a man is the greatest honor you can bestow on him. It

means that you recognize his superiority to yourself."

-- Joseph Sobran

[sundial4000]

Wow. 

[Rocco Rizzo]

Thanks for pepper spray, and the steroid intoxicated police officers who use it.

[BebeBebe321]

I can't believe this was on Obama's teleprompter today.

[irishbull777]

bullshit

[Ninjalectual]

Leave it to Burroughs to speak the raw truth!