An excerpt from my play Sparks of Fire. Enjoy!

FATHER: It’s exactly as I remember it.

Not a day goes by when I don’t look back

And ask myself if I did the right thing.

Do you ask yourself that question? Yes no?

Well? Do any of you ask that question?

How often? Right then, well if I were you,

I’d be asking myself that question less.

The reason? No reason, well, not one

That allows for a candid answer. I’d

Have to tell you the whole story and, well,

That’s going to take a while to do.

And I have to tell ya, it’s not pretty.

It’s a bit dark, and unhappy, gruesome

To be honest; not in the violent

Way No, I didn’t mean that at all folks!

But, how’s about this, have any of you

Ever had the feeling nothing mattered?

Absolutely nothing matters to you?

You are as despondent as can be, right?

Well if you have had that feeling, then

I am telling you, you’ll understand folks,

What it is I’m trying to tell you here.

            ENTER SON:

It all started a while back. I can’t say,

In, 2011? Earlier my wife will say,

But that’s off topic, anyway you guys,

And gals, one day my son decided,

That he would get out of line. That is, he’d,

Well, he wouldn’t be listening to me.

SON: You can’t fool them with that pop.

FATHER: I’m not.

SON: Then what are you doing? This folks,

Is a classic example of a father trying

To do his best to make you all look

The other way on his wrongs, and,

To scrupulously look down on me

Because of a little mistake I made.

            ENTER: Girl behind him.

GIRL: But it wasn’t a mistake was it J?

SON: No, it wasn’t, I’m sorry, wrong words.

GIRL:                                                    Hmm.

FATHER: You want classics folks? Okay, here we go!

This is the story of a kid who falls for a dame,

Gets his head thrown into a jumble, and,

When that’s not enough, decides, my good folks,

To throw his entire life away. Now,

I’m not saying I’m a perfect father, but,

This isn’t exactly the sort of thing

I like to see in my son’s behavior.

            ENTER MOTHER: behind Father.

MOTHER: You never liked to see anyone get

Out of line when it came to you and law!

The question of course that I am attempting to delve into is the matter of words, who they come from, why they come out in the first place, and what the intention is. You see, the fact of the matter is that words can have so many meanings that unless they have structure there is to much room for misunderstanding. Here, I place words into meter so that I can prevent any misunderstandings from occurring, any misinterpretations. The trouble of course is that in doing so I am assuming that anyone who reads this will be able to understand verse. 

What is it about verse that holds me? It's the truth that comes out. Its truth that rings out. You see we can write in prose any old day, but in order to truly become accomplished at prose we have to understand the rhythm of our words, and in verse we can structure that rhythm very well. Once done, the verse naturally carries our words in prosaic ways so as to provide us with a clear cut path. We are going somewhere. We are not merely staying put. Like watching a line of droplets form a line of water that flows down the window. It goes somewhere. In all of that prose that is written across the page we can get lost. In verse, it is easier to see where we came from, and where we are going. Perhaps it is mere opinion and not truth, but its a thought.