sinners welcome

David C. Halliday
Tuscan Grapes I, 1998
sepia toned silver print
16 x 10

~*~*~*~

a friend of mine turned me onto a poet named mary karr - she is stark and bold and brave and i dare say a bit raw -- and a Catholic convert. the article that led me to her story is here. it actually moved me enough to order two of her books, one of which is titled above and the other, the liars club. i just began that on the beach today as i've already finished sinners welcome - here is a bit of her writing (again, she is not for everybody, but i liked her enough to give her a mention...) those of you who know me well enough can understand why she resonates with me...




Disgraceland

Before my first communion at 40, I clung
to doubt as Satan spider-like stalked
the orb of dark surrounding Eden
for a wormhole into paradise.

God had first formed me in the womb
small as a bite of burger.
Once my lungs were done
He sailed a soul like a lit arrow

to inflame me. Maybe that piercing
made me howl at birth,
or the masked creatures
whose scalpel cut a lightning bolt to free me --

I was hoisted by the heels and swatted, fed
and hauled through rooms. Time-lapse photos show
my fingers grew past crayon outlines
my feet came to fill spiked heels.

Eventually, I lurched out to kiss the wrong mouths,
get stewed, and sulk around. Christ always stood
to one side with a glass of water.
I swatted the sap away.

When my thirst got great enough
to ask, a stream welled up inside;
some jade wave buoyed me forward;
and I found myself upright

in the instant, with a garden
inside my own ribs aflourish. There, the arbor leafs.
The vines push out plump grapes.
You are loved, someone said. Take that

and eat it.