Death of an Immigrant by Bobbie Kalman

kalman

The author with her Mother and Father, Imre Kalman
Photo courtesy of Bobbie Kalman

My father cheated death a number of times.
People called him a hero.
In Hungary, he was my hero.
But our Revolution failed,
and our dreams were denied.

On Dad’s 35th birthday,
we fled our country
in the middle of the night.
“You’re so lucky you got out,”
those left behind cried.
But my father was never the same.
Although his body was safe,
his spirit had died.

We became immigrants in a country far away.
For my father, that was the saddest day.
Although his life was still ahead,
he fled backwards in his mind
to happier times in the place we left behind.
His life became conversations with the past.
Mythical, magical stories filled his head
Stories that took place long before we were born
Stories we learned to dread.
Being kids, we preferred the present instead.

Our new home was a shrine to what used to be,
but it was a place we never felt free.
The rest of us forged ahead with our new lives,
but we felt too guilty to look in his eyes.
Eyes that were empty—showing no spirit inside.
Dad thought he cheated death,
but he just didn’t die.

The doctors called him a “medical miracle.”
They took out organs, cut off his leg,
and started his stalled heart three or four times.
Then, one day, his heart just broke.
His body finally died.
If only he could have realized…

People die for the myths they create.
And then, suddenly, they find out—too late
that love exists only in the present.

I hope you’re in the place of your dreams, Dad.
I hope there is nothing there that
makes you feel sad.
If only you could have read my book!
I went back to the past to have a good look,
at our lives in Hungary,
where you were my hero.


Source: Bobbie Kalman, 2023

Read about Bobbie Kalman

Before Explorers and Pioneers by Betty Beam

explorers
Niagara Falls, 1874
Image courtesy of the Library of Congress

Before explorers and pioneers came,
Indians gave Niagara its name.
For, sound and sight displayed
Left each viewer dismayed—
Now power and beauty parent world fame.


Source: Laroque, Corey. Here’s What the Poets are Saying. Niagara Falls, Ont.: Niagara Falls Review, November 21, 2009

This limerick was entered into the So You Think You Can Rhyme (2009) Limerick Contest to find Niagara Falls’ Poet Laureate

Go to the Limericks page

A Country Sleigh Ride by Melvin Byron Misener (A Fragment)

sleigh
George Ellis, Wife and Girl at Dufferin Islands, Niagara Falls, 1890
Image courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library

Last Thursday night with the weather mild,
A party proposed a sleigh-ride wild,
So they all piled into a two-horse sleigh
And sped to the country miles away.

To say where they went I think’s no harm,
For they landed at the Robertson farm ;
We think their number was forty-five.
Were they noisy ? Well, they were much alive.

Now they took Dr. Wallis, he’s quite a nob,
And always on hand for a tying job.
He went just to help the youngsters through—
A helper good where there’s work to do.

The telephone’s handy, bet your life,
So Wallis telephones to his wife :
“We got here safe, twenty minutes to stay,
And then we take our homeward way.”

It was not so, for the whole bunch
Say we don’t leave till we have our lunch.
So coffee, cake and a sandwich too,
Were passed around among the few.

On Fluvius now you can’t depend,
When you want it dry, the rain he’ll send ;
So, to make them mind their homeward trip,
The rain came down with a drip, drip, drip.

[page is cut off at this point]


Source: Probably from The Welland Tribune. Found in the Misener folder of the Mayholme Foundation

Melvin Byron Misener of Crowland (May 18, 1847 – May 28, 1936), was known by many readers of the Welland Tribune as “the Crowland Poet”. His personal writings span the period from 1869 to 1935. Among the daily accounts of social events, weather conditions and farm chores in his diaries there are numerous obituaries for friends, family and others living in Welland County, particularly Crowland, Thorold and Port Robinson.

Read more about Misener

Twilight on the Tow-Path by Ernest Green

green
Delaware and Lehigh rivers at Easton Pa.
by Augustus Kollner, 1844
Image courtesy of the Library of Congress
Barge being towed by horses in foreground

I’m a-sitting by the tow-path
‡‡Of the days of long ago,
Where the long, green grass is growing
‡‡And the ox-eye daisies blow,
And I see a fading vision,
‡‡‘Gainst the sun’s last westward glow,
Of the schooners and the horses
‡‡In the days I used to know.

Big-boned horses, drooping, weary,
‡‡As they drew the tow-line taut;
Idle sailors, singing, cheery,
‡‡Lounging where the decks are hot;
Trudging tow-boys, cracking whips,
‡‡Cursing when a tow-horse slips;
And the rattling rustling, creaking
‡‡Of the gear upon the ships.

Little schooners with their lumber,
‡‡Going down the narrow ditch,
Out of Michigan and Huron
‡‡Bringing ashes, staves and pitch;
All the forests of the inland
‡‡Floating seaward, hour by hour,
Making way for farms and millers
‡‡To send down their wheat and flour.

And the immigrants go upward,
‡‡Irish, Scot, and Norse and Swede,
Looking to the land of promise
‡‡Where hard work is all they need
For the carving of a future
‡‡And the foundation of a race,
Facing westward, keen and eager,
‡‡To their new, free dwelling-place.

But the sailing ships have vanished,
‡‡And the tow-path sod is green,
Gone are horses, whips and shoutings,
‡‡Giving place to steel and steam,
Rusty plates and smoke and smother,
‡‡Sixteen hatchways in a row,
And a welkin-splitting clamor
‡‡That pursues me as I go.

I have seen as rare a vision
‡‡As the ancient prophets saw,
I have seen mankind in action
‡‡Working out the ancient law,—
“You shall all this earth replenish
‡‡“And subdue its every sod,”—
‘Tis mankind that builds our nation
‡‡But the architect, is God.


Source: McCabe, Kevin (ed.) The Poetry of Old Niagara. St. Catharines: Blarney Stone Books, 1999.

Originally published in the St. Catharines Standard, November 29, 1924

Read about Ernest Green

To Avoid an Unpleasant Tryst by Christopher Ellis

ellis
Niagara Falls from the Maid of the Mist Boat, 2022
Photo by Andrew Porteus

A young girl who’d never been kissed
To avoid an unpleasant tryst
She paddled her skiff
O’er the watery cliff
Becoming the Maid of the Mist


Source: Laroque, Corey. Here’s What the Poets are Saying. Niagara Falls, Ont.: Niagara Falls Review, November 21, 2009

This limerick was entered into the So You Think You Can Rhyme (2009) Limerick Contest to find Niagara Falls’ Poet Laureate

Go to the Limericks page