The Air In Gaza Smells Like Corpses

Caitlin Johnstone

Nov 8

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Listen to a reading by Tim Foley:

The newspapers keep saying the air in Gaza smells like corpses.
Like rotting human flesh; the entire Gaza Strip.
They say it emanates from the rubble.
Pervades everything.
It’s just what Gaza smells like,
like how Hershey, Pennsylvania smells like chocolate,
or how Milpitas, California smells like landfill.

I bet you can never get the smell out.
Out of your clothes.
Out of your hair.
Out of your dreams.
Out of your heart.

I bet none of us can.

Gaza smells like rotting corpses, and
our whole civilization smells like Gaza.
You walk into a Starbucks and it hits you.
You go watch Trump’s inaugural address and there it is.
The smell of rotting dead children wafts from our own ruins.
Fills our minds.
Fills our nightmares.
Fills the speech of the yammering pundit.
Fills the feigned joy of the social media influencer.
Fills the light pouring from our screens onto our faces in the dark.

We can scrub as hard as we like,
but that smell’s never coming out.

It will follow us straight down to hell.

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