Biscuit Factory

by John Short

This expanse of sprawling madness
and disinfected squalor
for a product no one really needs.

The thunderous megalomania
of machinery means action,
dismissing tinnitus as collateral.
Sad history locked within a place
whose soul is a wage-slave oubliette.

We are the caffeine operatives
who weigh potato starch all night,
nudge errant biscuits endlessly in line
and emerge like matchsticks
in the morning, Lowry silhouettes.