I sleep in a Cathedral in a bed from which I gaze with one uncovered eye into an infinite perspective. The poles that hold the structure of my room rise into the heavens and play tidily-winks with the shooting stars. Occasionally a bird, a pigeon or an eagle rests on a pole-top endangering my one opened eye in the pool of my room below. One of my ears is silenced by water and so half the world is obliterated. When the moon is bright my Cathedral glows and the silhouette of a horse moves elongated around the circular wall. The fire that warms me and keeps me company makes my home a glowing neon cone. All my actions and non-actions may be read from afar and from within by my shadow that is my halting of firelight reaching the circumference of the Cathedral. If I huddle close to the fire I appear a giant to passers-by. When I return to my bed the dream of my previous sleep awaits me on my pillow. I share my bed with mice, bugs, spiders, grasshoppers, ants and ticks. I have no fear for when the cobra may come in search of the mice because the cobra is only dangerous when cornered and my room being round has no corners. The fifteen poles that rise from the ground around me are lashed together in the distance above. At this point my Cathedral is dressed with a massive cloth with flowing lips of a mouth that can be opened wide or closed. In the morning a sunlit spear pierces it’s way through the opened mouth and stabs a bright shaft onto the inner wall of the Cathedral. At the moment chosen by time a mouse runs down my leg and high up above a fish-eagle cries. It is time to rise and leave the dreams embedded deep in my feather pillow for later recall.

Excerpt from “Writings at Red Hill” Phillip Nangle 2006

Painting by Phillip Nangle  “The Journey” 2004