Meet poet and writer Colin Morton, learn more about him, read excerpts from his BOOKS and other publications, get NEWS of his forthcoming events, and get a glimpse of the world from his point of view.

April is National Poetry Month, and as my contribution to poetry’s gift economy. I will post a poem from one of my books and send the book, free and post-paid to the first person who asks for it. Just email me with your postal address at colinmorton@sympatico.ca and wait to receive your gift. (If you then feel like giving me something in return, that’s great but not expected.)

Then I’ll post another poem from another of my books.

The next poem, from my collection The Local Cluster, is featured in the 2018 Poem-in-Your-Pocket online anthology coproduced by the American Academy of Poets and the League of Canadian Poets. The anthology is free for download and full of fine words. So download it and keep it handy. Meanwhile, here is my poem from the anthology. If you like it and would like to receive my book, email me at colinmorton@sympatico.ca

Nightwalking Between Centuries

Somewhere between ends and beginnings

alert to the scuff of a shoe in the shadows

a block away, I walk the night streets

of this city midway through self-demolition

− half-metamorphosed half-decayed  −

passing shadows of my former self

on streets where storefronts have shifted,

signs altered, brick facades from another century

caught in a bank tower’s funhouse mirrors.

And turning a corner I sometimes glimpse

the virtual, the becoming city

as near in time as this red brick

though barely imagined here at street level

where for years I’ve crossed against the light

and soon the first transhumans will cross,

become one with their devices.

At the edges of vision they pass like shadows

eyes never meeting, as if they don’t see me

or, if they do, do not see me as forebear

− flat-footed, astigmatic, fatally flawed −

an X of flesh in a world of unknowns

caught in reflection between walls of glass.

© Colin Morton