Sounds For Sunbathing In A June Afternoon Garden Poem by Roger elkin

Beech leaves rehearse whispers of shingle.
Spaced farms apart, cockerels are playing Queenie-I-Koko.
A far dog rasps sawing planks.

Next door’s spade filling barrows with gravel
Shunts, chugs and spouts between runs.

A maxim mower strafes down the lawn.
Overhead, starlings scramble a tangled cassette tape;
Suzukiing to Silverstone, fruitflies let throttles rip full out;
Bees kamikaze among pearl arbours of hawthorn.

Cuckoos protest “love you” “love you”.
Won’t someone answer the ringdove’s telephone
Or are you deafened by the rosepetal’s fall.