The roar of thunder
a natural wonder
water traveling freely
through crevices of rocks
flowing, flowing, flowing
in the Niagara River.
The brink is near
foamy white
dark shades of blue
sparkles the silky water
colours floating
how powerful
the hands of nature
a breathless spectacular.
Niagara Falls. Watercolour by Maria Cotrufo
Droplets of mist
moist in the air
surrounds this admiration
how beautiful
how rare
The Falls.
Maria Cotrufo is a resident of Niagara Falls who loves poetry writing and watercolour painting. Cotrufo enjoys yoga and walks throughout scenic Niagara for a healthy lifestyle. Through out the week she works full time in the health industry.
The Europa Hotel in Downtown Niagara Falls. Photo by Cole McInerney
And the street held silence for two strangers who didn’t have to stay that way. We stood silent below lamplight in the magnetic time.
Your suburban home stood parched in the dark and didn’t know me well. Your mother stood at the northern window and pretended to be passing by. The ten o’clock fireworks stood above the hotels and were heard in a tired sky. Your roof stood parallel to that forgiving horizon.
Your car stood locking and unlocking as we collided. We stood silent across from fire station number three then went around your block again. And in that silence we don’t celebrate the ending we just end up walking other ways.
Source: The author, 2021
Russell Street was first published in The Continuist, May 10, 2020
Cole McInerney is a poet from Niagara Falls, Ontario. He studied English at Toronto Metropolitan University. Currently, he is a MFA student at the University of South Carolina, studying poetry. His poems have been published in several print and online publications, including Feral Poetry, White Wall Review, The Bookends Review, and Echolocation Magazine.
Electric Power Transmission Corridor. Photo by Cole McInerney
The Riall Heights Plaza was a refuge in all weather
You come through the door, yelling about the Republican Party and the pandemic response, high on speed. Magnifying the voices of breathless men who score the TV. Winning in the poll, losing as I leave.
Racing the sparkling, champagne SUVs which pour down the street. Asking for a truce once they take the lead. Passing a string of houses with front yard pesticides and driveway gates. The kid sleeping inside, born with a royal name.
Settling at the commercial plaza which shelters a bar, campaign office, and other businesses; which end and begin to end again. Beneath the desperate cover of a patio umbrella, I find a childhood friend. just as the rain collapses on the peeling parking lot.
We talk about holidays, the pitcher pricing, and attempting to forget every lie we’ve told, as we create the next. The rain moves on in a moment of disbelief. Likely toward downtown. Standing to walk home, he says you better not fucking die.
Source: The author, 2021
Cole McInerney is a poet from Niagara Falls, Ontario. He studied English at Toronto Metropolitan University. Currently, he is a MFA student at the University of South Carolina, studying poetry. His poems have been published in several print and online publications, including Feral Poetry, White Wall Review, The Bookends Review, and Echolocation Magazine
The tide rises,
suggesting the season,
stealing the stairs.
I sit in competition
with the horizon,
wondering which of us
blinks first.
Remembering the anniversary
of my grandmother’s death
to be eight or nine years ago,
yesterday.
On that last day
she struggled out of bed,
laughing at the difficulty.
My grandfather
helped the tanker ships
retire from the lake,
until the ice breaks.
The tide recedes,
suggesting the season,
returning the stairs.
I think of you
rather than sleep,
ignoring my eyes
and the moth at the screen.
A stranger with your voice
laughs on the beach,
staggering into the water,
hurrying back out.
Eventually I dream,
within it you write to me.
In the caverns of the fantasy,
the landscape blinked.
The light at its farthest reach
sank into the sea,
and we laughed at the difficulty.
Source: The author, 2021
Cole McInerney is a poet from Niagara Falls, Ontario. He studied English at Toronto Metropolitan University. Currently, he is a MFA student at the University of South Carolina, studying poetry. His poems have been published in several print and online publications, including Feral Poetry, White Wall Review, The Bookends Review, and Echolocation Magazine.
Fallsview Boulevard in centre of photo, running from top to bottom. This is at the bottom of the hill. Imax Theatre on right, Best Western large rectangular building on left. Niagara Falls is to the right of this photo. August 22, 2005. Photo by Alina Rashid. Image courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library
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.
