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.
We live among unheard Niagaras.
The force that pushes up the meadow grass,
That swells to ampler roundness ripening fruit,
That lifts the brier rose, were it not mute,
Would thunder o’er the green earth’s sunlit tracts
More loudly than a myriad cataracts.
Source: Wetherald, A. Ethelwyn. Lyrics and Sonnets, Complete Edition. Toronto: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1931
Read about Agnes Ethelwyn Wetherald on the Brock University Archives site. Wetherald lived her later years in Pelham, a few miles from Niagara Falls.
