Open Letter to William Burroughs

You told us all

that naked lunch

is the moment when you discover

what is on the end

of every fork,

and I'd love to know

how you could possibly have

such a realization--

bitter old repressed and privileged

white man, addicted to heroin

and shooting your wife to death

completely by “accident”

in a drunken game of William Tell-

as if there were involuntary

flicks of the trigger finger

that lead mysteriously to death-

wow, how did THAT happen?!

And since your father

engaged in every imaginable type

of imperialistic shenanigans, 


you get to make

a video about evil white men

with a backdrop of thundering buffalo,

and you read out loud

in your trademark voice

that drips with contempt

like heated blobs of turpentine

as if it actually enraged you

that the leaders of the country

that gave you every possible advantage

are engaging in a little harmless genocide.

Meanwhile,

your own children are starving

and trying to commit suicide

while you're plotting your entry

into Gap videos during the nineties

and rehearsing your cameos

in Gus Van Sant movies

which depict you as a sage

ranting about the war on drugs

as if you were the first to know about it.

Yeah, tell me what is on the end

of every fork,

we're all dying to know each detail,

please share every

chunk of sagacity you can dredge

from your supremely self-centered brain

as you choose whether or not to dine

upon whatever is on

the end of your gilded silverware-

and who or what you can exploit

at any particular moment,

while the rest of us are just grateful

for whatever scraps you shove

in front of us.