Days settled into your new apartment,
a cold breeze blows where no window is open;
a closet door ajar seemingly the source;
promptly closed.
“Strange,” you think, paying little heed.
In a rush to get to work...you’re out the door.

Go to bed that night,
leaving tomorrow’s clothes folded on the dresser.
The next morning,
find them neatly stacked at the top of the stairs.
Momentarily, childhood fears return,
recalling neighbors’ tales of murder/suicide;
surely only the stuff of movies…
you dismiss the illogical.

The family business has been slow;
you could use a little cheer.
Stopping after work,
pick up three bottles of wine,
placing them on the kitchen counter,
but suddenly there’s that breeze again,
cold as death itself. One after another,
the bottles go smashing onto the floor,
and there’s no one in the room…but you.


© 1985

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10/28/2012

Author's Note: Based on a true story, as recounted to me by a close friend. A businessman, who moved to Ottawa to marry my wife's best friend. Years before in his home town of Vancouver, he considered himself a skeptic of the supernatural, at least until he realized an apartment he had rented was haunted by a poltergeist. As the ‘phenomena’ continued, grew in intensity, after the wine bottles incident, he soon found another place to live. Happy Halloween everyone! Published in the chapbook We Are T.O.P.S. (The Ontario Poetry Society), May to August 2004 Vol. 5 – No. 2., I.B. Iskov Editor/Publisher, Toronto, Canada. I.S.S.N. 1708-2552

Posted on 10/28/2012
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