Ode to a School by Stephanie Vigh Nielsen

There’s an old school in Niagara
It’s located on Lundy’s Lane
With front and back roof dormers
And windows of diamond pane

Ornate with decorative detail
In classical Edwardian times
Clean lines with a portico entrance
And oh how that old bell could chime

Just a short walk to Green’s Corners
I was only six at the time
And my heart would fill with excitement
As I joined my friends in the line

My teacher was tall and stern
Her hair tied up in a bun
But all the students loved her
Because she made learning so much fun.

Alphabet cards on the chalk board
Magic letters that turned into words
Oh the joy I felt when I realized
I had entered a whole new world

Fun with Dick and Jane readers,
Weekly spelling games
Reciting multiplication tables
In my school on Lundy’s Lane.

The old school is looking sad now
Wooden planks are covering those panes
Chipped paint and looking very unkempt
That sweet school on Lundy’s Lane.

Remember the importance of preservation
As our dear Ruth Redmond said
She valued the importance of history
It will last long after we’re dead.

Cherish our history forever
Like Europeans have done throughout time
Please can we all join together
And save this old school of mine.

Source: The author, 2021

Visit Stephanie Vigh Nielsen’s Niagara Proud website

Visit the City of Niagara Falls’ Heritage Property Listing for the Lundy’s Lane School

Robert Frost by atlantic

The neighbourhood where I live
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡is surrounded
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡by
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Trees.

So everywhere you look
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡There is a thin green canopy

A living, breathing enclosure
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡away from the bustle of
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡the city
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡and nearby highways.

I don’t know
‡‡‡‡‡‡about fences
‡‡‡but trees?

‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡Trees make good neighbours.

Source: The author, 2019

atlantic was born and raised in Niagara Falls, where he still resides. A selection of his work is available on Instagram

Also by atlantic:
• Baby Steps IV
• burgoyne bridge
• carnival tunes
• water child

Sorting Skins by Ryan Racine

Sunday afternoons consisted of pressing
five year old flesh
against puzzle pieces, constructing a
cardboard genome. Stuck in monosyllabic monotony
to keep childhood ignorance distilled
from ambiguity.

On Tuesdays, teen intimacies grew in the form
of Queen Street coffee shops, hoisting shy
ankles curled during untimely dates.
Couples waited for conversations to climax,
leaving sweat on lips to
taste like warm milk.

Forget embarrassment and
after parties where cold hands sunk into
heads, pulling hair back behind the ears so
stuttering saliva could cascade
freely into Chippawa porta-potties.
The guiltless eloquence of touch leaves a sensual
lore sliding with voluptuous syncopation.

Ryan Racine earned his master’s of English language and literature from Brock University. He is currently working as a high school teacher and college instructor in Ontario. His poetry can be found in The Steel Chisel, Pauses/Words/Noises, The Brock University Anthology, Pictures & Portraits, Ekphrastic, Joypuke, Weekly Poems, and PACE Magazine.

See other poems by Ryan Racine on the Niagara Falls Poetry Project website:
• Flow State
• Worldly Wounds

Worldly Wounds by Ryan Racine

My dog is a narrative archivist,
unearthing the forgotten and
polluted histories that are
scattered across Niagara Falls’ ecosystem.

Like the bacterial intrusions that make
their way into his body and
cause biological mutations, the
city’s traumas enter and impregnate my mind.

Realizing that i do not have the ability to
recreate a preinfectious state,
i instead reflect on what it means to be
in a postinfection state where i see myself

as part of the problem.
All i have is my dog’s nose,
the bringer of light
that grants recognition to the unsaid.

Ryan Racine earned his master’s of English language and literature from Brock University. He is currently working as a high school teacher and college instructor in Ontario. His poetry can be found in The Steel Chisel, Pauses/Words/Noises, The Brock University Anthology, Pictures & Portraits, Ekphrastic, Joypuke, Weekly Poems, and PACE Magazine.

See other poems by Ryan Racine on the Niagara Falls Poetry Project website:
• Flow State
• Sorting Skins

Russell Street 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.

Follow Cole McInerney on Instagram

Follow Cole McInerney on Linktr.ee

See all of Cole McInerney’s poems on the Niagara Falls Poetry Project website:

• The Buildings of the Dream
• Convenient Corner
• Lake Erie
• Russell Street

Tag: City of Niagara Falls

Ode to a School by Stephanie Vigh Nielsen

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Robert Frost by atlantic

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Sorting Skins by Ryan Racine

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Worldly Wounds by Ryan Racine

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Russell Street by Cole McInerney

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