The Ghost of a Rose

[good4somethingbum]

I'd like to address both of my loyal readers. years ago I got an idea for a screenplay and I used to muse and think it over while on my morning runs. I worked up a thread of a plot, protagonist, leading lady, villains, snatches of dialogue and an ending. for years it's just been gathering dust in the cellar of my thoughts.I tried to interest a music publisher in it but he basically yawned. I have no creative collateral. no reason for anyone to put out feelers in my behalf. I've written literally thousands of lyrics and poems in the past 25 years. from every conceivable angle and in every structure. It recently occurred to me I should try to novelize my screenplay idea. I've been freeforming parodies of political correctness over the past year or so and it's given me a taste for writing beyond verse. so I'm giving it a shot. My reasons are in the last verse of the last lyric I completed Here Be Monsters. I'm 51...either atrophy or live. It'll probably be awful but it'll be a challenge. If and when I finish, I plan to shop it around. No one will want to publish it. it's not vile like Gone Girl. It's not going to be a load of "empowerment" cliches. So I'll probably self-publish it on Kindle.
a guy on JPF keeps bumping my old material. I haven't posted on there in five years but he keeps my memory alive which I appreciate. When he bumps my older stuff and I see it, I'll cut and paste them here. That's what Ghost of a Rose is. I've got enough lyrics for 50 composers. If anyone wants to co-write, shoot me a PM. here's to a new chapter...

The Ghost of a Rose

Her fam'ly moved to Danville in '79
they came from a Texas town near the borderline
I loved her brown eyes and skin of polished bronze
so I picked her a rose near my fav'rite fishing pond

and we lay out where blue Kentucky grass grows
until the pink sunset became the ghost of a rose

well, most people just didn't care in Danville
but Dad's heart was cold and hard as an anvil
no son of his would love a girl with diff'rent skin
looking back I should've fought for my maiden
cos now her face is slowly fadin'
like soft petals of mem'ry on the southern wind

but I can't change the end of the path I chose
and now in restless dreams I pick the ghost of a rose

I heard she moved back to that bordertown
so I fixed up a scrapyard Chevy I found
I fin'lly caught up with her on a south Texas farm
she had a man in the field and a blue-eyed child in her arms

now I try to hide it but that scar always shows
cos it's from thorns on the ghost of a rose

well, Dad's buried on the outskirts of Danville
my old fishing pond is now a landfill
and some nights I reminisce with a jug of red wine
and with ev'ry lonely hour that passes
the cold regret I drink from my glass is
like a rose pressed between the pages of time

and my heart knows any new flower that grows
will always be haunted by the ghost of a rose

(c)2005 Robert George