Water, Earth, Air: the Art of Peter Angel, by Faye Brinsmead

Awe, by Peter Angel (Australia) 2018

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Water, Earth, Air: the Art of Peter Angel

I. The dangers of buoyancy
​
You placed yourself
beneath its pectoral fin, 
your small silhouette
anchoring
this vast kite of the sea.
The largest living fish, too big
for any aquarium
except one carved
of liquid curiosity. 
We suspend it
between the windows, stand
hand in hand – 
travellers on the lip 
of a foreign land.
You toss facts at me: 
bigger than a bus, on earth
for 60 million years, 
victim of the shark fin trade.
I half-listen, tugged
by ultramarine suck
until buoyancy 
sings my limbs to rest, inflates
my heart into 
a crimson orchid 
sought by trophy hunters
of the darkening blue
as, one by one,
the great fish’s painted stars
blink                     out.  

My Park, by Peter Angel (Australia) 2012

​II. An alien encounter
​
The aliens land in the park. They advance in squadron formation, confident about their disguise. Satiny plumage – most convincing. Pink web-feet, green neck-frilling. Earth-pigeons aren’t five feet high, but that’s a detail. Anyway, everyone’s oblivious. The bi-gendered pair on the bench play hide-and-seek with their mouths. A she-human propels a clunky receptacle, shown by their infrared sensors to contain a neonate. A canine overlord drags two human slaves. They’ve read about all this in the files, of course. 
 
The he-creature in the center of the scene has them puzzled. He bends, smiling, before a metal vessel. His elongated arm incites water to bubble forth. This, they agree, warrants investigation. 
 
Something else is off-kilter. 
 
They’re too happy, the white pigeon observes.  
 
Too peaceful, the light gray one agrees. 
 
The lack of violence and despair is strongly anomalous, the dark gray one chimes. 
 
As they confer, a hand presses them to the green and yellow grass. The glue on their unpainted undersides begins to stick. Is this how they’ll end their mission - in some earthling’s collage?
 
They stare, glassily, at an ibis’s jaunty rump. Like them, it’s a cut-out.
 
Goodness knows how they failed to notice the giant magpie. It’s been eavesdropping all along. 
 
You’re forgetting about art. The movement embracing the untutored authenticity of youth. Na-
 
The glue, drying suddenly, clamps the unfinished word to its oversized beak. 

Perchance to Fly, by Peter Angel (Australia) 2019

​Love letter to an airborne artist
 
You leap into painted air,
having cast off
everything but essence.
 
Flesh, bone,
even your shadow
casually unzipped.
 
You recreate yourself
in a few quick strokes,
pink hand-splotches
 
flung
onto bird-scratched
blue.
 
Down below,
tree-shadows crawl
towards water:
 
a headless army
bewailing
its burnt umber fate.
 
Their poisoned sobs
will never catch you, 
sky-surfer
 
updraughting
on your current 

of boundless trust.

Faye Brinsmead
​
Faye Brinsmead's flash fiction and poetry appear in journals including The Ekphrastic Review, X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine, MoonPark Review, New Flash Fiction Review and Twin Pies Literary. One of her pieces was selected for inclusion in Best Microfiction 2021; another was nominated for a Pushcart. She lives in Canberra, Australia, and tweets @ContesdeFaye.