My Grandmother Was a Waitress in Niagara Falls by FJ Doucet

My grandmother at forty woke up before dawn
to dress, put on make-up, and curl her hair.
She was divorced, a mother of five, and a waitress
at the Best Western hotel in Niagara Falls.

The job started at eight o’clock but, always,
she left her apartment on Main Street early. Turned
the key in the lock. The click in the lock
told her she had the freedom to claim the open,

silent walk. She was a waitress at the Best
Western hotel in Niagara Falls. The boss was waiting
at the job, but the shift started at eight o’clock,
and just after dawn my grandmother still found worlds

of time. Worlds enough to breathe the air and know
she was alive. In 1980, in Niagara Falls,
the air smelled of water and smoke and big car
engines. Morning leavings of tourist bacchanals

performed all night before. But she didn’t care
for any of that. She was a waitress at the Best
Western hotel, and when she walked down
the Fallsview Boulevard hill she knew—she was alive.

These days my grandmother’s legs are frail
as the stilts of dying birds, but four decades back
they were still strong enough to work all day—
work and wake again before the dawn, wake

to descend the last stretch of hill. Watch
the rising sun turn Niagara’s jagged trench
and torrent liquid gold. Now at eighty years,
my grandmother trains my gaze with misty eyes

and lifts a brittle claw. When I was forty,
she confides, I was a waitress at the Best Western
hotel. Every morning before work, I’d walk down
to Niagara Falls. Watched the water. Knew

I was alive. A smile snakes across her skull. You know,
I thought I was so old. My God, she whispers,
I’d give anything now to be forty. Walk
down the hill to the water. Alive.

Source: FJ Doucet, 2021

FJ Doucet’s work has been published in grey borders magazine, The Banister, Hamilton Arts and Letters, Red Bird Chapbook website, Ascent Aspirations, and The Lyric. She is the newest president of the Brooklin Poetry Society. Doucet was born and mostly raised in Niagara Falls, Ontario, and though she has since lived on three continents, Niagara continues to haunt her.

Click here to visit the website of FJ Doucet

Sunday Afternoon in Niagara Falls by Marilyn K. Moody

It’s a grey february day, and we’re
just hanging out in old Niagara Falls,

in a bar next to the river, you know, you
can look out the smoke-smeared window,

and see the river across River Road, but
everyone there has seen that water all their

life, they don’t give a shit about the river or
the falls; maybe you might get a grunt or

something if you talked about Love Canal,
mainly cause everyone knows somebody

whose property values got ruined, and my
friend still points out that gash on the earth

every time we drive here to this sleazy but
not a biker bar here in her home town,

but the real purpose of coming here is
perfectly clear to us and everyone else.

We shoot pool.

The regulars at this bar know

their real purpose too, and they get to their
drinking and don’t even move, so we don’t ever

have to fight to put quarters in the table’s slot,
but we stack up the quarters for at least 10

games anyways, and then we chalk the cues
and then we rack the balls, and then WHOOSH

we break the balls, and you ain’t seen nothing
until you’ve seen the four of us playing pool

in a niagara falls bar in the middle of winter
with the whole bar wishing they were us,

and any guy who challenges our best
wishes he’d left the old bitches alone,

and we’re the main entertainment, we’re
the whole sunday afternoon show,

and we don’t ever let anybody down.

John’s Trip, or, A Visit to Niagara by John R. Barlow

A Serio-Comic Poem, in Four Cantos.

This is a 96 page, book-length poem about John, from Rhode Island, who takes a trip first to New York City and then to Niagara Falls by boat and train. His romantic encounters are described, as well as the adventures he has in Niagara Falls with hackmen, swindlers, and hustlers. At the same time, he is impressed with the natural beauty of the Falls.

Read the full poem at Hathi Trust

Citation: Barlow, John R. John’s Trip, or a Visit to Niagara. A Serio-Comic Poem in Four Cantos. Niagara Falls: William Pool, Printer, 1871

Niagara, My Home Town by Stephanie Vigh Nielsen

In the town where I was born, we’d walk up Lundy’s Lane
And talk about the dreams we had.
Life was a glass of ginger ale and a juke box serenade,
And we never thought of growing old.
Yes, I know those days have come and gone
Still I think about my old home town.

At a place called the Rendezvous, we’d congregate at eight
And talk about the baseball game.
Lights flashing on the window pane, watching cars go up the lane,
We’d wait for friends and lovers.
Yes, I know those days have come and gone
Still I think about my old home town.

Lavender mist makes a foggy night haze
While the falls come crashing ahead.
And I lean on the rail feel the damp cooling spray
Watching the foam turn a luminous maze.

And as I drive towards the town, the neon signs flash on
And thoughts begin to fill my head.
Oh the happiness I found, in my family’s old home town
Where nothing seemed to ever change.
Life was very simple, way back then
And we thought that it would never end.

When our dreams of long ago were scattered on the way
And our childish hopes departed.
Life went on but not the same, we grew up, we’re not to blame,
And those magic times forgotten.
Life was very simple, way back then
And we thought that it would never end.

Source: Niagara Falls (Ontario). Coronation Centre Newsletter, 1974

Visit Stephanie Vigh Nielsen’s Niagara Proud website

Canadiana 2000 by Kevin McCabe

mccabe2

The plastic Mounties come in five sizes
With prices adjusted to every pocketbook.
They are drawn up in ranks of prancing horsemen,
Proudly displaying their little Canadian flags,
And marshalled under a sign which reads “Canadiana”.
The Mounties are ready to march:
To take their places on ashtrays, mugs, key-chains, T-shirts, and underwear;
To serve their country at souvenir stands, gift shops, motel lobbies, bus terminals, information
booths, and gambling casinos;
To form a guard of honour for Wayne Thompson, Mike Harris, Jean Chretien, Marilyn Monroe,
Angela Mosca, and Arnie Swartzennegger;
To go forth from here all over the world as little symbols of Canada.
And, standing in front of the display, in the fever of the moment,
I am rapt in an epiphany:
It seems to me that I am witnessing
The birth of a nation.

Source: Kevin McCabe. Canadian Topics: Poems About Canada, 1967-2017. St. Catharines: Blarney Stone Books, 2017

N.B. This poem was inspired by a souvenir market on River Road (not the Castle Souvenir Shop) – personal note from the author.

Category: City of Niagara Falls

My Grandmother Was a Waitress in Niagara Falls by FJ Doucet

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Sunday Afternoon in Niagara Falls by Marilyn K. Moody

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John’s Trip, or, A Visit to Niagara by John R. Barlow

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Niagara, My Home Town by Stephanie Vigh Nielsen

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Canadiana 2000 by Kevin McCabe

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