Poem of the Week, week 8: Emil Boyson "Army Hospital Death"

ARMY HOSPITAL DEATH

A glimpse of the moon racing in terror between the clouds!
Then the night nurse, leaning over him, noticed he was cold. –
Stretcher wheels echoed in dull brains.
Pause. – Morning sun on the bare rectangle
of a bed removed.
On the floor a broken watch glass,
the latest movie magazine left behind without an owner,
and sleepily a mild morphine voice asking: “Who was that?” –
This is the soldier who died when all were asleep.

Emil Boyson (1897-1979)

Translated by Martin S. Allwood in 20th Century Scandinavian Poetry, Sweden, 1950, p. 163. 

See the poem in Norwegian

Poem of the Week

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