PAD Chapbook Chalenge Day 28

Happy Thanksgiving! Today's prompt from Poetic Asides: Write a "gratitude" poem.  So I noticed a lot of reminders on my Facebook page that the song I reference below, "Alice's Restaurant" by Arlo Guthrie, has become an annual broadcast tradition on many radio stations for Thanksgiving Day. I remember hearing it when it was new - that's how old I am. They're aren't too many songs associated with Thanksgiving, but this has become a quintessential example. (If you've never heard it, it's basically a two-minute song with a 15-minute monologue sandwiched between the verses, and it's very funny and topical.)

Thank You, Arlo

for Alice's Restaurant,

that eighteen-minute ramble

about your hippie days and the

"Thanksgiving Dinner that Couldn't Be Beat",

and taking out the trash

in a red VW Microbus with shovels and rakes

and implements of destruction,

and Officer Obie, and the court appearance

with twenty-seven eight by ten color glossy pictures,

and the draft board, and Group W,

and father-rapers, and "Kill! Kill! Kill!"

and the Anti-Massacree Movement.

It was about Vietnam - back then

everything was about Vietnam,

but for me, and countless others,

there's no Thanksgiving without it,

and we love when you assure us

that you can get anything you want

(exceptin' Alice).