Heather Carr-Rowe (sgeoil) is the Poet of the Week for the W3 Prompt #95. Her prompt guidelines are to employ personification and write a poem from an object’s point of view. In response, I wrote a poem about a broken mandolin.
The broken mandolin
I once made people sing,
but now I am broken with a broken string,
No one plays my tune;
My music is unheard.
No one strikes my chords;
No strumming of a third.
I lie silent in a cardboard coffin box.
Muted, unheard herein,
I am nothing but,
A dying, broken mandolin.
~
Sheet music of opera, jazz, folk and pop,
surround me,
Their yellowing pages stay unturned.
We are lovers lost.
Spurned.
Jilted at the cost of
Chopin, Liszt and Bach,
Not to mention folk songs,
As old as Noah’s ark.
Left in the lurch.
No prayer in church.
Where is my musician friend?
Betrayer?
Wherefore came this end.
To lay unplayed instead.
I am a broken mandolin with a broken string.
With no one left to make me sing,
I may as well be dead.
~
Lesley Scoble, February 2024
Timelapse video of the drawing of The Broken Mandolin (27 secs)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Thank you, Heather, for your motivational and inspiring prompt.
My thanks as always to David, The Skeptics Kaddish, for your encouraging weekly W3 Prompts.
Lesley lives in the City of London Square Mile. An artist, actor and sculptor (her first ceramic sculpture won the V&A inspired by… Award). Scenic artist & book illustrator, playwright (her musical play, Rapscallion performed in inner city schools and theatre school); TV dancer; Animator and illustrator for TV production. Set up Pinecone Studios Ltd and IIMSI Ltd drama and filmmaking workshops in London – producing award-winning films made by children.
LesleyScoble.com 
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