The Little Red Shoes

A few years ago, I made myself take a creative writing class because I had been going through writing withdrawals and knew it was the only way I'd sit down and actually write something.  (And I liked the teacher.)
For various reasons, a lot of what I wrote was either inspired by fairy tales or had a fairy tale feel to them.  Go figure.

This one was an (assigned) experiment with a from called a "Terza Rima" which uses a rhyme-scheme of three interlocking rhymes; each stanza is dependent on the one before it.  I'm not trying to give you a lesson in poetry -- this is merely so you understand why I - a non-rhymer by nature - wrote a rhymey, silly little poem.  It was fun actually, because the terza rima is like a little puzzle.

Anyway, don't laugh.

The Little Red Shoes

It was the little red shoes
that started it all -
the perfect ones to choose

to trample hearts at the ball.
The turn of my ankle was lovely;
I'd never looked so tall

as when they placed those shoes upon me.
My heart danced as my feet did,
my skirts swayed prettily,

held high by fingers in soft kid
gloves. Men's eyes on my fevered skin -
but I played coy and hid

my eyes. It was sometime before the gin
took hold, and I felt that I must sit.
Drunk, too, with dancing, I felt my head spin.

I found a chair and fell into it -
or tried to, I should say...
My feet seemed to be in a fit

to dance my soles away.
The little red shoes would taptaptap
nor stop, nor cease, nor stay.

I tried to pry them off, to wrap
my fingers 'round the heel -
my beleaguered feet continued to slap

the parquet floor, and - Oh! the pain I feel!
Still, I continue tapping, tapping
with this blasted little red heel
an S.O.S. to warn you: never trust a gypsy's deal!