McGenocide

Listen to a reading by Tim Foley:

CNN says an IDF soldier has suffered trauma
because he had to run over too many Palestinians
with his D9 armored bulldozer.
Says he can’t eat meat anymore
because he had to drive over so much human meat
(he actually called it “meat”)
and it reminds him of all the blood and guts
and bones and tissue that would come squirting out
when he ran over them.

Poor IDF soldier,
can’t even enjoy a Big Mac anymore,
can’t even bite into a big juicy McGenocide burger,
can’t even masticate a mouthful of gore
without being haunted by visions
of human torsos and skulls spurting guts and brains
as he plowed over them “dead and alive”
in the killing fields of Gaza.
Can’t even enjoy his Children McNuggets
without remembering all the kids he killed,
all the tiny bodies,
shredded bodies,
bulldozed bodies,
body parts packed into the treads of the bulldozer,
getting caught in the works,
having to pull them out by hand because by golly
we need to use it some more tomorrow.

And the CNN man says 
So sad! So sad!
A man’s got to have his meat.
Got to bite into it, 
feel it dribbling down his chin,
hear it screaming and begging for help,
hear it crying out for its mother one last time
and then nothing but snapping and crunching
and chewing and swallowing
and washing it down with hard liquor 
to kill off the feelings in his chest,
the feelings that won’t ever go away,
that pound like mortar fire when he awakens from red dreams
about screaming and spurting and crunching and popping,
and remembers that he used to be an innocent young child
like the tiny red ghosts who haunt his nights.

And we live the McGenocide too, don’t we?
We live it right alongside him here in this crazy country
where we laugh and joke and eat buckets of meat slop
while our government turns humans into bulldozer mince in Gaza.
Grinning Black Hole Sun grins with meat dribbling down our chins
while the sky turns red and the birds turn into Reaper drones,
giggling at our podcasts and getting mad at the Uber Eats driver
for being five minutes late with our next plate full of carnage.

And we have the nightmares too, don’t we?
Waking trembling with terror at what we’ve allowed,
what we’ve helped make possible,
what we tacitly consent to while we distract ourselves
with smartphones and streaming services and porn and gossip
and the ridiculous fake election for America’s next fake president
and plate after plate of bleeding red meat.

Our teeth grow sharper and our hearts grow harder,
and the smoke stacks fill the air with a horrifying stench.
In this genocide town, 
this ghost town, 
this meat town,
it’s essential to learn how to drown out the feelings
and bark and bray at the blood red moon until dawn
because it beats the hell out of sleeping
and dreaming
and remembering,
remembering what we have done,
and where we are going,
and what we have become,
and what we are still becoming.

________________

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Featured image via Mike Mozart (CC BY 2.0)