Watching the North Korea Military Parade

A steely sky hangs over this spectacle
here where the world is eternally gray
hundreds, no, thousands, tens of thousands or more
file upon file of sartorial flags
a military machine with a million moving parts
clicking with more precision than his atomic watch
is ticking

God help the smile that escapes from a face
a stray cowlick, a sideways glance, a fly on the nose
of a cog in this contraption
one million duplicated faces
duplicate uniforms, duplicate lives
clicking and clicking in sickeningly perfect

time, an abstraction left back in the
fire that Prometheus, a Korean, stole from the
gods, the Kim Jongs now at work on his liver
sticking the scalpel and clicking and clicking
a square with no end, a sky with no blue

surely one of these bodies, impeccable cogs,
knows thirst and knows hunger, has a child in some cell
where electricity is rationed some days of the week
a pat of rice, a weekly egg

on the face of the leader, cheeks bloated in family pride,
a dispassionate smile from high above as the sick clicking million-headed
contraption goes by; he looks at his watch through his Versace shades

Thank God for football, and oil rigs, and beer,
and George Bush and the chance to live like and think like a pig; thank God, click it off, it’s

TV