Brian Routh's poem seems to begin with damage. The speaker says something was "strangled" in their youth, leaving them "gulped shut," with nerves that shake in silence. It reads like a voice that was choked off before it could develop, and the broken, clipped lines mimic that struggle to speak.
The middle turns to a warning: "don't try to tell them / leave them be." The "last machines" that follow are people, or perhaps a way of living, that have stopped feeling and just run. They are "naked," breaking bottles, with sirens and guns going off. The scene is loud and reckless, though the speaker doesn't seem to be celebrating it. The mood is tense, bleak and resigned.
The closing couplet, "live and learn / die and forget," twists a familiar saying. Learning doesn't lead anywhere here, and everything gets forgotten. The poem suggests, without spelling it out, that silenced people may end up acting out in violence and noise, and that nobody will remember why.