Category: Niagara Falls Poems

Niagara Falls by Dennis Spilchuk

spilchuk
Photo by Alexander Marmora on Unsplash

Aboard the Maid of the Mist, drenched from the spray,
Approaching Niagara Falls, I gaze in awe
At this wondrous sight of the renowned cataract,
Cascading fervently over the precipice
And violently crashing down upon the rocks
In a roiling boil is mesmerizing to see.

And behold! Out of the mist a rainbow appears,
Arching a span over the turbulent waters
From where thunderous roars are heard and eddies swirl
As if the heavens opened: “The Rapture is here!”
With angels descending to carry Christians home.

And I am small amongst giants (walking in the world
Defenceless against nature’s challenging forces),
Who will read “Insignificant” etched in my headstone.
Unlike those who think their works will last forever,
I’m like Niagara, trickling into the future.

Source:  Dennis Spilchuk first published Niagara Falls on June 15, 2025, on the AllPoetry website. View other poems by Spilchuk here.

Many thanks to Glenn Bridenbaker for bringing this poem to the Niagara Falls Poetry Project‘s attention.

 

The Demise of Howie Fell by T. W. Kriner

howie
Image by T. W. Kriner, ©2025

Howie drove to Niagara Falls.
Girlfriend wouldn’t take his calls.
Learned by text he’d just been dumped.
Walked to Prospect Point and jumped.

Source: T. W. Kriner Twelve Dozen Four-by-Fours:
Rhymes of a Cranky Old Conservative. J & J Publishing ©2025
Available at Amazon.com

T. W. Kriner is the author of Journeys to the Brink of Doom (1997), In the Mad Water (1999), Twelve Dozen Four-by-Fours (2025), and The Call of Tawiskaro (2025).  He lives in a Western New York swamp with his wife and two cats.

Kriner says:
About three years ago I began writing what I call four-by-four poems:   four lines with four beats per line, usually with a pair of rhyming couplets.  The challenge for me was to do at least one or more of the following in each poem:  tell a story;  paint a picture;  evoke or share a memory;  express a political opinion;  convey my view on a particular subject;  do something else while trying to get a laugh.   I’ve recently posted a fair number of them at  All Poetry .com, if you’d care to sample. 

Niagara by Joanne De Simone Reynolds

reynolds
HorseshoeFalls and Upper NiagaraRiver from the Canadian Side. Photo by Joanne De Simone Reynolds, 2019

The mist   The falls   The split
Every body giddy for it   Every body
Transfixed   Joyous noise   The weir-dam sheer
Power of it   Volume
Churned up   Every body electrified   Every body
Eclipsed   The spray haloing every head   Rainbows
Multiplying like the fishes   Water
Fired up   Every one speaking in tongues   Every one
Bewitched   Paradox   Of biblical proportion   Where
Thunder Beings once existed   Ecstasy
In every femtosecond   In every drop:
Resurrection   Fishes falling through the falls cushioned
By froth   Soft immaculate breast of the goddess   Plunging
The escarpment   Sacred once   Once sublime   Siphoned to spectacle

Source: The Author, April 2025

Bio:
Joanne De Simone Reynolds was poetry judge for Art on the Trails in Southborough, Massachusetts in 2023 after placing first for poetry in 2022. Her collection of sixteen ekphrastic poems for 2020 Art Ramble in Concord, Massachusetts can be viewed alongside images of the sculptures at The Umbrella arts center.

Joanne De Simone Reynolds visited Niagara Falls in August of 2019.

The Niagara Falls by Narenderpal Singh

singh
Part of the Canadian Falls and the American Falls seen through the mist
Photo by Andrew Porteus

When I first saw it
I was wonderstruck.
Yes, what a wonder—
wonder on earth.

When I saw the Niagara Falls again
I was wonderstruck, true,
but pensive—
where does it flow from
where does it go
how much
how big
how long shall it last—
and a thousand questions
which have no answer.

When I saw it again and again
I was prayer itself.
No questions
nor answers
a sense of just being nought
a zero—
like man
in His creation.

Today I see you
my friend
like Niagara Falls
as I saw it last.
Words, wonders,
thoughts, ideas,
earthly profundity
godly truths
godly secrets
flow out of your mind
your lips!

Vast expanses
countless Milky Ways
universe after universe
shapes itself and vanishes—
you, dear friend,
are the Niagara Falls.

Source:  Dubey, Bijay Kant.  The Niagara Falls by Narenderpal Singh. ResearchGate, January 2024.

First published in Singh’s Crossroads.

Read Dubey’s essay about The Niagara Falls by Narenderpal Singh.

 

 

Niagara by Timothy

timothy
Two ladies posing in front of a Niagara Falls backdrop, one with an umbrella. Image courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library

There’s nothing (saving six,) great blustering Fall,
Thou may’st not to the fancy’s sense recall,
A drove of bleating, wooly-coated sheep,
Each other chasing in a headlong leap ;
The flaunting flounces of a dancing rout :
A cask of whiskey with the head knocked out ;
A stormy fury, jealous of her spouse,
Smashing the total crockery of the house ;
The frothy bombast of some learned dunce ;
Ten thousand bawling children whipt at once ;
A city’s soap-suds on a washing  day,
Or rowdy hubbubs of a drunken fray ;
     The present times, so meatless—’ out of joint,’
Or breakfast cascades, off rough Judith’s point,

Oh may the spray that flusters o’er thy water,
Making a fuss much greater than it oughter,
There spend its rage, nor shower upon the hills,
To wet those natives who’ve no umberills !

Source: Geneva Courier, August 16, 1842

At head of poem: “Our Tim has left at the Falls the following.”  This note and the tone of the poem suggests that Timothy may have written this poem in the Table Rock Album, kept at Table Rock House in Niagara Falls, Ontario. There is no other information identifying Timothy.

Click here to see other poems in the Table Rock Album.

Also published in The Ovid Bee, August 10, 1842