Our Sunday Morning Poet this week is Steven C. Davis, an author and also the Creative Director of Tenebrous Texts, a small imprint working with a global range of authors and storyteller whose works cover speculative, alternative and dark fiction works. Steven, alongside Laura Jane Round, is also one half of the gothic poetry duo, Poetic Malevolence.
As part of Poetic Malevolence Steven has performed at countless spoken word events and festivals. He is a regular performer at the Poetry Breakfast’s organised by Saturday Books in Dudley (alongside Betthany Willaims who we profiled last week and OL's own Jay Lewis), and is currently working on their first poetry collection.
Next month Steven will participating in the Becoming the Art of Words event as part of this year’s Wolverhampton Literature Festival. The event will allow visitors to immerse themselves in the fascinating world of ‘Ekphrastic Poetry’ (where a poet engages with a painting, drawing, sculpture, or other form of visual art). As well as performing poetry at the event, a number of Steven’s paintings will also be on display (Steven describe their art as being ‘very much a journey of development’). It promise to be a fascinating event (admission free!)
THE BLACK DOG
The black dog is howling today
But that’s okay, I need to take him for a walk
Let him off the leash for a while
And let him run around.
He gets more exercise than I do
Taking me into the past and the future
The bleak end of Blighty
The bleak end of time.
The black dog is howling
And I’ve fed him treats and taken him for walks
I’ve ignored him and screamed back at him
And still he runs around.
The black dog –
You know what? I’m sick and tired of this black dog.
He eats up my time and my happiness
He eats me up.
The black dog’s gonna find
He might bite but I’ll still carry on
I know I’m good no matter what he says
This isn’t imposter syndrome
I’ve fucking earned it!
The black dog howls.
And I howl right back at him.
He howls I growl we snarl
He goes for a bite but I’m looking for a fight.
The black dog and I aren’t friends.
Sometimes he swamps me but I’ve got claws as well
He can rage and snarl
But I can drag him into the light.
© 2023, Steven C. Davis
Links:
Tenerbrous Text's Bandcamp page
Steven's books and audiobooks Amazon page
