Kevin James’ “Just for You”, first published by the Moonstone Arts Center’s “Remembering Lucille Clifton”, explores the experience of immanence, a theological doctrine stating that the divine presence is present and active in our material world as opposed to just in a metaphysical or ethereal realm.
Just for You
this breath,
just for you
a heaviness in the chest
omen to infinite magic
sorcerers’ apprentices
crying tears for bad ideas
dismal baptismals
from time immemorial
torrential currents
splinter broomsticks
dancing awkward rituals
unceremoniously
swept out to sea
by moonlit tides
stealthily pursuing
ageless agendas…
so innocent an immanence,
witness to a given sense
silent sighs turning
worlds upside-down
vision’s original flaw
leaves beholders
bewildered, awed
distracted from themselves
dancing dream-like trances
in-between sequencing
virtual semantic séances
summoning July 4th fireworks
echoing shooting stars
brilliant arcs all
ever approaching
without alighting
upon the furthest horizon.
Kevin James
Kevin James is a retired New York City firefighter and decorated arson investigator who was one of several Muslim Americans profiled in the PBS documentary Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet. He was a Revson Fellow at Columbia University where he participated in Columbia’s 9/11 Oral History Project and later graduated from Columbia Law School as a Stone Scholar. As an intern he assisted the Center for Constitutional Rights successfully challenge discriminatory hiring practices in the FDNY. His commentary has appeared in The Islamic Monthly, Black Commentator, Sisyphus, Write Launch and Dreamers Creative Writing while his poetry has been published by The Tahoma Literary Review, Into the Void, Griffel, Rigorous, Beyond Words Literary (pending August 2021) and The Sixty-Four Best Poets of 2018 (Black Mountain Press). Visit his website Agnostic Dialectics (agnostic-dialectics.com).
Kevin, thanks for keeping in touch. All though your writings are out of my thoughts I love receiving them. (And impressive)