In A Private Ward Poem by Gert Strydom

The voices of talking nurses,
the sound of trolleys that are pushed
up and down hallways

do supplant the white,
do bring interruption to the colour
of the bed, the floor and wall

and I am caught as if captured in an unknown country
with a pipe that runs into a vein on my arm
on which a bag is hooked that continually feeds

drop by tiny drop,
I am busy through waves of pain
looking at the angelic face of a nurse.

Pain is a thing
that just does not want to disappear,
that comes back again and again.

© Gert Strydom