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, 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.

-WSB

--

-Bob

"My fault,my failure,is not my passions,but in my lack of control of
them" -J. Kerouac

"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible
worlds,the pessimist fears this is true." -J B Cabell