Beware! Beware! The red ballet shoes!
A cursed gift you should always refuse!
For fame and fortune comes with such a high price,
With these red ballet shoes that so tempt and entice.
So beautifully seductive that none have ever refused,
For no mortal woman can resist the lure of these shoes...
Beware! Beware! The red ballet shoes!
A cursed gift you should always refuse!
A voice of one and many fills your head,
So cold and haunting and full of dread.
A mere trick of the wind you quickly assume,
As you gaze at the parcel that is your doom...
You quickly unwrap your mysterious posted surprise,
Beautiful red ballet shoes that behold a grisly demise.
You breathlessly gasp staring at them ethereally entranced,
These red ballet shoes are so fine, new and made to dance.
Spellbound you hold them closer and find a note inside,
Which you then read aloud and become so mystified.
These red ballet shoes will take you afar,
And you will become Ballet's brightest star.
Great love and vast fortune will come your way,
But wear at your peril, for there's a price to pay.
This warning and shoes either refuse or abide,
A simple plain choice that is for you to decide...
The note ignored you slip them on and they fit like a glove,
Oh! These red ballet shoes are both bewitching and snug.
And within a year you've become Ballet's greatest star,
For the red ballet shoes have taken you wide and afar.
More famous and loved than Pavlova, Shearer and Fonteyn,
But tonight these red ballet shoes call for you to be slain...
You sleep like a princess, at peace and completely alone,
To awake screaming, experiencing true horror now shown.
The red ballet shoes are now back frightfully on your feet,
Tying themselves excruciating tight your blood does excrete.
Your sobbing and cries can't be heard as you're guided along,
You fight you struggle but these evil red shoes are too strong,
And the high cruel rooftop beckons for your dying swan song.
A running start and then a leap and endless tears as you fall,
Your once beautiful body so tattered and torn a sight to appall...
Now dying you realize that faraway voice at the start of it all,
Were the ghosts of previous owner's whispering warning call...
Beware! Beware! The red ballet shoes!
A cursed gift you should always refuse!
*
Inspired by The Red Shoes 1948 movie starring
the beautiful and beguiling Moira Shearer.
And the beautiful and also beguiling Kate Bush
for her 1993 album The Red Shoes.
