BREAKING Poem by Elma van Haren

It gave off a loud SMASH-CLATTER.
Not tin or glass, but words,
spoken in a laconic voice.
Linguistic double shot, Break out!
Force your way out!
Loud laughter and then

the stars shattered in my
invariably polite presence.
Just what I wanted for my birthday.
A Smash-clatter.
It's perfect!

I shook off the pigeons stifling me
in their feathered chambers.
Their cooing echoing off four walls.
Every sound a funnel to a word,
to the corresponding image.
The language of pigeons (cooingpoohpoohingboohooing),
trying to smother me in their downy dovecote.
I, a natural breaker-outer,
called SMASH-CLATTER
to let the extent, the length
- hurtling train in the greyish-red evening -
go thundering through
into its own space.
With ears ringing from the pigeons' deep gurgling and
lips pinched, as blue
for example as after eating
inedible berries from the deepest Congo,

I clattered
shattered
sniffed my way out.
Weighing lighter flying over,

my Smash-clatter immune to the pats on backs,
condescending nods, tweaks of cheeks
that buzz off into the world
like complacent May beetles.
Immune to jolly falderal,
Bluster & Bluff, tossed my way
with a thick spray of black saliva,
as if the brew were plague infested.
And sweetheart,
those black holes in your smile
have nothing to do with the state of your teeth.
So I'll smash-clatter you too!