Running on Empty

Is this how we're likely to come to the end of it?
Via the sweet and the sour and the foe and the friend of it,
The pick and the mix and the make-do and mend of it,
To the change down the gears for the lonely last bend of it?

Through the strike-a-faint-spark but can't make a flame of it,
The stand-on-the-pitch but can't join the game of it,
The knowing-the-face but never the name of it,
The reliance on strangers and feeling the shame of it?

To the panic at every Who, When, Where and What of it,
Forgetting each lover's last, 'Forget me not' of it,
When a void where life was is now all that we've got of it.
And all that's ahead is the last, 'That's your lot' of it?

Martin Parker

If you have any thoughts about this poem,  Martin Parker  would like to hear them.