Tractors. A poem.

Robert Garnham

Oct 4

Poem

It's not the countryside, he protested.
Just an enclave of the city.
The actual city. London, he said,
Like I had to be reminded which city.
It might look green but we got that
Big city vibe going on,
Urban infrastructure, neon, Oyster cards.
What about all the tractors?, I asked.
What tractors?, he said.
And at that moment, a tractor chugged past.

That's highly unusual, he said.
We don't often get tractors here,
Because this is the city.
I'm as shocked as you are.
Chug chug chug chug chug went
Another passing tractor.
There goes another tractor, I said.
I didn't see one.
Are you sure it wasn't a double decker bus?
And then another tractor chugged past.

It's the pulsing throb of metropolitan energy I like,
He said,
Looking wistfully at a cow shed.
And a tractor chugged past.
You can even see Canary Wharf
If you go on the roof
And then climb into a hot air balloon
And go up and bring a telescope.
It's right there, Canary Wharf,
That's how urban this place is.
That thatched roof gets a bit slippery if it's
Been raining.
And then another tractor chugged past.

The traffic is so bad, he said.
The other day I ordered a pizza.
The Deliveroo cyclist took nine hours.
He had to sleep on my sofa.
His big Deliveroo box frightened the hens.
Hens?, I said.
City hens, he said.
And then another tractor chugged past.

I thought to myself,
(Because you can't think to other people),
I thought to myself,
I'll let him enjoy his delusion,
For geographically he may be nearer Yeovil,
But at heart he's a city boy
And he's got that city life
And he's got that city buzz
And sure, he swears blind that the sign on the bus stop
Which reads Farmers Market Every Tuesday
Is actually graffiti in rhyming slang for
Darren Is A Tosser
In a new kind of rhyming slang
That's so modern that it
Doesn't even rhyme,
But he's a city boy.

And then another tractor chugged past.
And another tractor chugged past.
And then two tractors chugged past.
And then a combine harvester chugged past.
And then a tractor chugged past.
And I asked,
What's with all these tractors?
And he said,
I don't know, it's weird, isn't it?
Let's go and make out in the turnip field.