NO TEARS

Formal Dark Verse

NO TEARS

She turned away and faced the wall to cry;
I'd watched her with a wary eye askance,
And ne’er the moment passed she'd dared to glance
At me to show the workings of my lie
On her that had so sudden gone awry.
"You'll be okay." (There's bliss in ignorance.)

I’d lied with good intent to spare her heart;
Yet when it’s writ, that hoary cripple with
Malicious eye—the villain in their myth—
Will walk unscathed, scarce bruised by hurt.
Those damned romantics and their false art
Will blame a heart of ice for her sad death.

And they will say, “I never saw a brute
“I hated so.” Yet naught they’d ever know
Of pain to set one free and watch her go
Into the light and see her God’s door shut.
Those damned romantics—all of them—dispute
That loss sans tears still pashes hearts with woe.

--Monty Wheeler


I leaned heavily on Robert Brownings poem Childe Rolland to the Dark Tower Came. I gratefully borrowed his rather taxing form and rhyme scheme. And hopefully breathed new life into some of his images and created something entirely different.