"24th century lullaby" by John Reinhart, Frequent Contributor

24th century lullaby

John Reinhart

moonlight starlight sunlight shooting

comet cleaner meaner brutal

bruises snoozing alarm hooting

newsy reports retort hymnal

singing ringing bringing comfort

lightspeed needed freedom breeding

symbols ciphers runic transport

moving learning secrets reading

tellings legends stories fairies

healings heavens fearless airtight 

waking conscious future clearly 

shooting moonlight starlight sunlight

Poet's Notes:  I first heard of the empat perkataan from in an article by Shelly Bryant in Scifaikuest. Malaysian, the basic form is made of rhyming quatrains where each line contains four words and each word is two syllables. Part of the goal and movement in the poem is for the words to relate in image or sound. Sound associations and the repetitive rhythm of these poems create an exciting new form that I find similar to impressionism. As Bryant noted, this form seems well suited to speculative poetry, a means to new language and image.

Editor’s Note:  Thank you John for introducing me to the empat perkataan form and for providing such a moving example of it.  I am looking forward to experimenting with the form myself.