Back to Work (Factory Noise)

A poem from 1986

back to work again

it’s tiring lifted boxes all day long

back to work again

it’s a strain

to hear what people say

amidst the noise of machinery

back to work again

as a sea of cardboard faces

with permanent frowns

cry salt tears

into the bucketful of aching muscles

back to work again

as the odour of frozen vegetables

permeates my nostrils

pollutes my lungs

and returns to be recycled

into papier-mâché figureheads

back to work again

one of society’s drop outs

in this stinking pit

of rotting

human braincells

that lie idle while the people in white

try to stamp robot on our foreheads

back to work again