Tag: hotels

Untitled by Anonymous

pavilion
The Pavilion Hotel by James Pattison Cockburn. Tinted by Erna Jahnke. Courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library

Visitors, whene’er you wish
To feast on poultry, flesh and fish,
‡‡‡‡And right good wine,
Leave your fare across the river,
And like a hearty right good liver,
‡‡‡‡At the Pavilion dine.

 

Read about the Pavilion Hotel

Source: Table Rock Album and Sketches of the Falls and Scenery Adjacent. Buffalo: Steam Press of Thomas and Lathrops, copyright by Jewett, Thomas & Co.,1856c.1848

This link takes you to the scanned version of  the 1855 version of Table Rock Album from the Hathi Trust

See the Table of Contents of the Table Rock Album on this site.

The Veranda by Jane Urquhart

urquhart veranda

urquhart veranda
Kick’s Hotel, Niagara Falls, 1890s, with a horse-drawn streetcar in front. Photo courtesy of Niagara Falls Public Library

Nineteen

hair piled high
afternoons on
the wooden verandah
of Kick’s Hotel

‡‡‡‡‡‡‡where her mother
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡dressed in black
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡moves like a cloud
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡behind the soft screen door

‡‡‡‡‡‡‡fabricating
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡tiny wreaths
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡from light brown hair

grandmother is passing the time
around like cupcakes at nineteen

rhythms of porch swings
father and brother recently dead
locks of their hair
braided in
mourner’s jewellry

summer afternoon

several young men are
tipping their hats to grandmother

‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡sooner or later
grandfather will pass

‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡he is the icing
‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡‡he is the season

he will die too
of course

men always do

 

Source: Urquhart, Jane. False Shuffles. Victoria: Press Porcépic, 1982. Section entitled The Undertaker’s Bride. 

Click to see more of Urquhart’s The Undertaker’s Bride poems