By Magdalena Munao By Magdalena Munao | October 18, 2019 |
In one of the more interesting new developments in the American literary scene, Forbes Magazine Columnist and Advertising industry leader Thomas Herd of T1 Advertising has just earned official representation from The Robb Company for his debut poetry book entitled The Fire That Courses Through Me.
Although a newcomer to the fiction world, Herd (a seasoned journalist- who has more than 30 top publication articles according to https://muckrack.com/thomas-herd makes a first salvo that can be considered both a stirring and serious contribution to contemporary poetry.
With influencers that fuse F Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is The Night with modern Hip Hop charisma, The Fire That Courses Through Me presents a vivid and evocative collection of poems highlighting a young American's first encounters with old Europe,his first flushes with torrid love, and the poignant disillusionment he's hit with when he realizes that such awe-inspiring feelings of life simply cannot be sustained.
To preview his upcoming book, here below is both the book's cover as well as one of its standout poems Karma's Riviera.
Karma's Riviera
The rose gold edifice of L’ Hermitage can be seen sitting on top of ridges of purple violet hills and ivy green reeds.
Dawn’s mist will be gradually dispersed by vigorous gusts of ocean wind rolling off the bay, handing over a brand new day underneath a cyan blue sky. Feelings jovial and high flutter round casting jubilant sight and sound to this ever-evolving montage.
As the green reeds which sit atop the palace rustle in the wind, we flash to within and see men who’ve ‘made it’ in life but whose glorious paths to victory were paved with sin, who consequently aim to enjoy beautiful lives all the while combatting inner feelings of chagrin.
From outside you wouldn't know it- but now since you're in- sprung onto a marble ballroom that begins to stir in hushed tones of excitement - you'll find businessmen with blue cravats from Geneva parlaying with Arab Sheiks for a little wine and dine and speculation over oil mines, whose eyes sometimes dart off their boring discussions to see the beautiful ladies sashay by in their Herve Leger dresses, whose smiles and laughs depict a life free of stresses, run up the marble stairs to take in more excesses until they hit the pleasant courtyard gardens drunk with glee to look down over endless rows of pink bogonvelias and a shimmering turquoise sea
And all the while there is a scent very similar to Tuscan lavender but with a twist of lemon which wafts through the air, and one of the men from the courtyard can be seen taking his lady down the stairs past where the others had rushed up, through the ballrooms of paltry discussions, winding their way down through one of those garden rows rife with lush pink flower, just before the approaching sunset hour, to a 1958 jaguar roadster convertible sitting on top of black cobblestones and 250 horse power.
And there underneath the blossom trees and pink marigolds they slide in and set off towards the setting sun, and just to make it more fun she clutches his hand on the stick shift and slides her right leg gracefully over left, leaning into the winding turn as they descend into the azure blue abyss that unites sea and sky.
Laughing about fickle little questions only an interested woman would pose, some of to which the man driving could honestly deny, others to which he had to lie, she came to the conclusion that perhaps she’d never get to know the real him but she didn't mind, for her instinct was saying he’s more good than bad, and besides- to beguile the likes of her- she knew that men oftentimes had to charm, enchant, and lie in perfect style.
And there they were, two tumultuous souls driving along the French Riviera in sheer karmic denial under the setting sun clamoring to find what identity they still had left after they had let most of their past go to attain what now stretched out majestically in front of them.
And as they carved along the coast, racing past the high ridges of purple flower, the sun's magnificent pink orange rays gleaming off white sands, and little blue ice cream stands from which winding lines of French schoolchildren serpentined outwards into decorative blue spirals, they started to realize they had a whole new world in front of them they knew little about that could hold unprecedented pleasures and peerless powers.
And even though the sunset would soon bring about the night, at the magic hour they could pull their car over by the vista overlooking the seaside jetport and prolong their delight.
Lying there atop the car’s cold hood, they gazed out upon the endless succession of little prop planes landing around them on runways flickering with red light, talking the night away about stories of Santa Anita horse races, carnal love, and reincarnation and then stay up eager for the next pristine day that would take with it their imaginations away somewhere along Karma's Riviera
Propelled by the release of these novel endorphins, their raptures endured until the first light of day. They looked into the newfound shimmer that sparkled in each others' eyes and a soft smile suddenly broke as they started to realize that for most of their lives, they had been caught somewhere in between reality and a horizon line which worked in karmic ways bringing everything they felt back to them.
This morning as the prop planes from distant lands began their descent over the pines dotting the coastline and the early soft sunlight of dawn rolled in starting to light up their view of those fabled Lerin Isles, their feelings started to soar across the Riviera and didn't bother coming back to them
They felt for the first time, that just like the prop planes they watched fly in and out as they pleased, that they were part of that limitless and liberated horizon line too, somewhere beyond and unbounded by the force of Karma, and oh boy that azure colored feeling washed over them until it lifted them out of themselves.
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