Tag: poems

Niagara Falls – Viagra Calls by Larry Pace

Certificate showing a couple honeymooned in Niagara Falls
Certificate showing a couple honeymooned in Niagara Falls

They honeymoon in Canada
to see Niagara Falls.
She’s young, and he is very old,
but oh, Viagra calls!

A single night of nuptial bliss
these newlyweds will face.
The pills work well—but truth to tell,
his old heart can’t keep pace.

Niagara Falls: Viagra calls
for just a little while;
a widow for a newlywed,
a dead groom with a smile.

She cashes the insurance check
and goes back to St. Paul;
she thanks the Lord for Viagra
and for Niagara Falls!

© 2001 Larry Pace

Source: The author, 2001

Niagara Falls at Night by Larry Pace

Niagara Falls at Night by Andrew Porteus
Photo by Andrew Porteus

Each night
the colored lights
dance in the water’s spray.
The rainbows and Niagara’s mists
make love.

Source: The author, 2001.

©2001 Larry Pace

As Falls Niagara by Melinda Nowikowski

Portrait of Melinda Nowikowski
Melinda Nowikowski

Buzzed on red wine
I watched
Niagara fall over your shoulder.
Premature showdown
In Honeymoon Town.

The first time we took our clothes off
It was to Monty Python,
Not Simply Red
Not Marvin Gaye.

“How to protect yourself
From an assailant
Carrying fresh fruit”…

For months I couldn’t bring myself
To tell you this,
When we made love that night
I heard Eric Idle ask,
“What if I’m assaulted by a
Man carrying a pointed stick?”

Nor has much changed since.

Source: The Nonelist Anthology, 2001.

About the author.

Niagara Above the Cataract by Clara Jessup Moore

Clara Jessup Moore
Clara Jessup Moore

River of banks and woods and waters green,
    With all of beauty to attract the eye,
    Why leaps my heart, as past thy shores we fly?
Art thou not quiet as an infant’s dream,
Pure as its thoughts, unruffled as its brow
    When circled by its mother’s arms in sleep,
While o’er it she doth still her vigils keep?
Then wherefore leaps my heart so wildly now?
Hark to that roar, deep as the thunder’s tone,
    And in the distance see the sun’s last ray
    Falling on clouds of never-ceasing spray.
In its wild beatings is my heart alone?
Thou glidest on to meet that battling flood,
Fearless as warrior to the field of blood!

Source: Moore, Clara Jessup. Miscellaneous Poems; Stories for Children; The Warden’s Tale; and Three Eras in a Life.  2nd ed.  Porter & Coates, 1875

Note: Moore used a variety of pseudonyms. This poem has also been published under the name Mrs. C. J. Moreton

Niagara Below the Cataract by Clara Jessup Moore

Moore
Clara Jessup Moore

Within a temple‘s towering walls I stand  ̶
A temple vast; the heaven is its dome.
No corniced crag was hewn by human hand
Nor by it wrought the tracery of foam;
The inlaid floor of emerald and pearl
Heaves at the hidden organ‘s thunderous peal,
While round and up the clouds of incense curl,
Shrouding the chancel where the billows kneel.
Ah! bow your heads. It is a fitting place
For solemn thought, for deep and earnest prayer;
For here the finger of our God I trace,
Beneath, above, around me, everywhere;
He hollowed out this grand and mighty nave,
And robed his altar with the ocean wave!

Source: Moore, Clara Jessup. Miscellaneous Poems; Stories for Children; The Warden’s Tale; and Three Eras in a Life.  2nd ed.  Porter & Coates, 1875

Note: Moore used a variety of pseudonyms. This poem has also been published under the name Mrs. C. J. Moreton