1 New Poem

Strawberries

When I asked you, how to
say freedom in a Persian
dialect from Qom,
you laughed:

“You have to taste the word,
in chalk, blood, bite marks,
rubber, gas,

let it drip down, sweet fruit,
and find its place with you,

see how it feels in the back
of big yellow taxis,

in front of star patterns
in shattered glass.”

I took a rosebud from
the counter case, studied in light,

how feel to run out
with dynamite sticks and megaphones,

break car windows, slash tires,
pour sugar down drainpipes,

give gotten candy to onlooking children.

You said it was the same as
strawberries

Whether I liked them or not.

2 New Poems

 Cold Nights Past

When we stepped through the door,
discovered it swung only one way:

Into the raising trash heat on
Queen and Alexander, I thought

Of the printed menus under glass,
outside our hometown’s Swiss restaurant,

How I did transgress,
the surveillance of city fathers

To slip between cherry trees,
take that rickety uphill ride,
drop metres down no more
in disgrace of arms and

Wind up tangled with you
bedsheets and boredom, missing the
starry tableau of clear Dominican skies,

Missing the clear head I had before
all the world, in gold, intruded.

Thoughts On Screen

When eyes become heavy with dreams,
I feel blood in all stitches
surrounding, the work of unseen
hands, advanced magic machines,
gas pedals and ship turbines:

They speak of waters deep,
rumours and rages half-buried,
they rush and recede in three-quarter time.

Holding tight, child in darkness,
arms wrap, entangle, a wire-nest
for flightless birds to dwell;

Reassured, face daylight,
turning over another set of
clock movement, counting until
again the covers can be pulled,

And the world vanishes, tragedies
invisible until morning.

1 New Poem

After the Midnight Caper

When they told me,
“this was the dagger
as we pulled it out,
no more from the thrift
store bin or through handle
markings could it be yours”,

I paused, taking in marble
columns, stained doors
from rain and the tentacle
of tracing wind in overhead
wires. I struggled to

Recall what was your
face without the wear of years

Without the misery of the world
tucked between two panes of glass.

I could have said you were
like a Sichuan peasant planting
by lantern light in ’56,

An apparition haunting
Wall spaces in ’89:

Something that held principle,
had faded, was torn,
to be sold on dorm room

posters in fifty years’ time;

I just said I never
knew your heat, left it

there.

. . .

But I wondered (silent),
if you still lived Munich,
at the lab with your
beakers and buttons, pencils and pinpricks,

You’d gladly have burned down
to dance amongst ashes,
breathe in the still smoke,

if the wall markings made an effigy of

us. 

Novel Now Available for Pre-Order

 Some exciting news for those of you who have been following my journey to publish my first novel (and those of you who haven't thus far!)

I'm very happy to announce that Smaller Animals is now available for pre-orders and has a confirmed publication date of November 25, 2025. This means that if you pre-order now you should receive a copy just shortly after that, early December at the latest (could make a great holiday gift for yourself for the reader in your life!)

Preferred method of ordering, especially for those in Ottawa, is via the Perfect Books platform here to benefit local independent retailers: https://bookmanager.com/1188534/?qs=Carter+vance&q=h.tviewer&using_sb=status&qsb=keyword&searchtype=keyword&submit=Search

You can also order from the publisher's website here, which will take an order via Amazon:

https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/roundfire-books/our-books/smaller-animals-novel

Stay tuned for more, including details of a book launch in December, and if you're interested in collaborating with me on any activities around the book release or just chatting about my work and the process, please drop a line!

1 New Poem

Unanswered Question

I used to live like prophecy,
spiking winds of cold iron
whipped up when you’d come to view;

How you said we were as two rains,
hurricane, light drizzle,
but couldn’t make out who was which

How I felt as the attic keeper
with my light and scribing tools
burnt oil into dawn.

With winters spent in isolation,
figures tramping through schoolyard
snow in heavy boots , scratch worn jackets,

There was still the hope in heart
we’d live our years together
be floating points in ether,

Have little lives of patience,
grace, tea times with friends,
where outside

Storms couldn’t rend us,
where memories would tether
and chords bind until forever.

But I don’t live like that anymore.

And you were always and never,
living in shade of trees
from the storm, alone.

1 New Poem

A Long Epilogue

A passing of phones poles,
windbreak trees on winter morning,
comes draped in waning thoughts

Of how we’re all going crazy here,
in boxes moving, static,
voyaging out at dawn’s light to

Do something we scarcely remember
as having worked its way
into etchings of memory:

Springs that ran dry to drink,
words that lasted until
the flattery came out of them.

. . .

I walked until there was no deal,
no bloody shirt treaty left unsigned,
no hill left to take in anger,

And watched the snakes and sinners
perched upon the cliffs,
shedding their skin-clothes until

Born anew in summer rain,
fixed faces were above us
laughing that we would

Never see their graces again
never speak the same verses
of pale moonlight pure.

1 New Poem

Spare Parts

We were only bodies after all:
odd-shaped things that
cry, breathe, manage themselves
out the door to daylight
and tire scratchings each day.

Until the slip of nights eternal
beckons, and we go under
its graces, separating
in the abattoir our
twenty-or-so pieces of worth

From this place and next.

How strange it must be when
all is removed, shorn of hair
and meaning, tossed to oceans

When rest takes us over
and we wail no more for
lost mothers, no more for
once-great loves, no more
in the stitching spaces
we used to roam.

“They won’t remember your
innards, you see; whatever they say,
it’s just a form to fill in
with dreams, hopes, desires.”

Whatever you were was just
whatever they took from
the odd shapes and made whole.

1 New Poem

A Light Ritual

Waking noxious, to
self-washing worlds, I stood
grey, blankets piled at foot
and mess, learning to forget
which wall shadows had danced
before.

Greet the turning clocks
without envy, peace in afternoon
was the world for me,
wishing to be absent all pain,
worry, essence of abattoir
and flipped page.

Feet aflame, eyes outrunning
the pressed pavement, I looked
for thundering snows to pass
find my well-marked place to
venture

Beyond these splattered floorboard
walls, beyond picture frames
seeming to align no more
youthful faces within.

Conjure, jostle, make alchemy
of words sparking against
each other, heat and light,
blinding both, lost to
cinder.

And you ask, over and above,
what will come of the dance
this time?

I wish for always and never,
sickly lines blurring,
but do not recognize,

The champagne-rose masks.