The Poetry of WITS member Michael Fitzgerald-Clarke

I Love You, But I Need My Friends

My bed is all yours tonight, it's warm,

I'm meeting Merlin in his favourite

gay bar in South Melbourne.

On the tram there I persuade a woman

reading Milan Kundera's latest novel

to kiss me and accept my hardback

copy of Coleridge's Collected Poems

in exchange for her underpants.

In the bar this wealthy blonde guy

is trying to get Merlin interested.

Merlin wants a woman tonight,

but he's left his wand in a saucepan

of lasagne at Silvio's house.

(We must visit Silvio. I'm worried.

His habit of pissing in his goldfish pond

is killing the goldfish.)

I lend him a chopstick, and at 1AM

he leaves for a brothel near Camelot,

telling me to sleep in the Botanical Gardens

because it's warm and the statues need company.

On the tram there I persuade a woman

reading Goethe in translation

to give me her underpants

in exchange for the other chopstick.

In the Gardens it's too late to have

an earnest conversation with King George,

so I ask him his star sign,

and to my delight he's an Aries, like you.

To learn more about the poet and his books visit http://www.globusz.com/Authors/Michael.php