Saturday, March 15, 2014

"The Other Wes Moore" Characterization Sonnets

Wes
A boy he was, and young to know of death
And waited he a cent’ry of seconds
To see his father’s face ghost-white, sans breath
Both died, the air and tears, behind his tongue.
The rules he learned of guns and compounds strange
Of neaf and neighbor he was taught by punch
And so from wary stranger he did change
To budding boy cut loose upon the Bronx.
Two paths to take this wayward boy must choose
Affect the school, or lose quite soon the streets
While bosom friend shows him the hangman’s noose
A diff’rent future he paints just as sweet.
            A boy he was, who found in life a door
            He was no less, but we can say he’s Moore.

***

Other Wes
Father was a name he never knew
And gangs and streets the bourns that he had bourn
Games he knew not locked in his brother’s due—
His mother dear a corset young but worn.
Brother was a bug he could not aspire;
Footsteps his he followed with knife in hand
But there the wicked cop-lights did red twire,
And his fight foiled to make himself a man.
Such strange compounds and brawls his tokens were—
All this sightless, without mother’s suspect—
‘Til fateful day his hidings she did skirr
And learned the extent of her son’s defect.
            If only with this finding she had saved
            Our gentle Moore, who’s now more to the grave.

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