The Party Prank Poem by David Lewis Paget

There isn't a sign, there isn't a trace
Of Isabel Groom on the planet's face,
She stalked from the room in a great distress
With a foot long tear in her party dress.

‘I shouldn't have come, I shouldn't have stayed, '
She said to the Under Parlourmaid,
‘I should have remembered, Elizabeth Krank
Is fond, too fond of the Party Prank.'

‘She came in a dress, with tassels in blue,
The same as the ones I was wearing, too,
I saw the glare that she gave me there
With the self-same comb in her party hair.'

Elizabeth went to the party cake
Staring, like someone barely awake,
She seized the knife from the cutting board,
Turned to Isabel Groom, and roared:

‘How dare you wear that comb in your hair,
And a dress that no-one was meant to share! '
She flared, and slashed in that candle-lit room,
And tore the dress of Isabel Groom.

While Isabel spun, and grabbed at her wrist,
And bent it back in a sudden twist,
They say that she bent it more than she should,
And Elizabeth Krank was sputtering blood.

The knife was embedded, deep in her throat
And Elizabeth screamed, a long high note,
‘I knew your party would be a mistake,
And now you've bled on the party cake! '

There isn't a sign, there isn't a trace
Of Isabel Groom on the planet's face,
She stalked from the room in a great distress
With a foot long tear in her party dress.

5 October 2014