Ghosts

Bad night with Kate and I am at my wits end. Think all this acting out and anger may have something to do with the fiancee disappearing from our lives. Her eyes are so damn sad.
Talking yesterday with my co-worker Bridget about ghosts and supernatural events. Seems she has been seeing and hearing things since she was a child. She is in her mid twenties and has always been terrified of the "people" following her around. Told her about Jack, who in second grade wrote "I am thankful for my psychic ability" on his Thanksgiving school project. I saw it on the wall of his classroom on Parent's Night. Bridget has never tried telling the spirits bothering her to get lost. I suggested she give it a try as it has worked for both myself and Jack before. She told me since she has moved in with her fiancee, things have quieted down. She thinks this is because he is such a devout non-believer in all things paranormal. She sees him as a shield.
Five minutes to kiddie wake-up call. Gotta get more coffee. Came across this poem recently from New York School poet John Ashbery and really like it. See what you think....

Meaningful Love
by John Ashbery


What the bad news was
became apparent too late
for us to do anything good about it.

I was offered no urgent dreaming,
didn't need a name or anything.
Everything was taken care of.

In the medium-size city of my awareness
voles are building colossi.
The blue room is over there.

He put out no feelers.
The day was all as one to him.
Some days he never leaves his room
and those are the best days,
by far.

There were morose gardens farther down the slope,
anthills that looked like they belonged there.
The sausages were undercooked,
the wine too cold, the bread molten.
Who said to bring sweaters?
The climate's not that dependable.

The Atlantic crawled slowly to the left
pinning a message on the unbound golden hair of sleeping maidens,
a ruse for next time,

where fire and water are rampant in the streets,
the gate closed—no visitors today
or any evident heartbeat.

I got rid of the book of fairy tales,
pawned my old car, bought a ticket to the funhouse,
found myself back here at six o'clock,
pondering "possible side effects."

There was no harm in loving then,
no certain good either. But love was loving servants
or bosses. No straight road issuing from it.
Leaves around the door are penciled losses.
Twenty years to fix it.
Asters bloom one way or another.