Two More Poems for Ela

by Paul Martin Freeman (October 2024)

London High Street (Michael Quirke, late 20th C)

 

Outsize baggy trousers

Her outsize baggy trousers say it best:
She’s lost inside a world that’s vast and empty;
A world where Ela’s sometimes so depressed
It almost overwhelms this girl of twenty.

A world in which she doesn’t quite belong;
Which doesn’t fit her properly nor suit her;
Where Ela feels that everything is wrong
While fretting constantly about her future.

And so she drifts in sadness through the day,
Detached from all that’s going on around.
In reverie she gently floats away
And dreams that never stop to touch the ground.



Ela in love

She met him on the 27 on Monday;
She’d seen him on the bus there once before.
He said today was gran’s one hundredth birthday,
Then tripped and bashed his head against the door.

She carefully helped him up and sat him down;
She placed his flowers and chocolates on the seat;
She noticed that his eyes were greenish brown
And thought him rather sad but awfully sweet.

He looked at her intently—then it happened:
The driver braked and someone gave a shove!
By now the flowers and chocolates, too, were flattened,
But Sam and Ela found themselves in love.
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Table of Contents

 

Paul Martin Freeman is a former art dealer. Two poems for Ela is from his unpublished work, The Bus Poems. His book of whimsical verse, A Chocolate Box Menagerie, is published by New English Review Press and is available here.

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