Deliberating On The Circumstances Around Him Poem by Charles Chaim Wax

Even in high school Irving pondered the profundities
not interested in basketball or hot dogs,
luxurious sneakers or big breasted women.
As the years flowed one into the other
his investigations became focused on evil alone
of course no time for college, or a job
but luckily Irving’s father
owned a used car lot on Coney Island Avenue
churning out enough cash
to set Irving up in his own apartment,
plus a tidy sum for incidentals, like food.
Lately all he’d say:
“Mao murdered 70 million.”
The first 50 or 60 times I nodded
then simply sighed
having no words to say.
Then one day in Meng’s a new story line
about a woman who jumped to her death
because she was about to be evicted
from her apartment
where she had lived for 28 years.
This time I had a word to say
saying, “Rotten capitalist bastards
their only God is money.”
Suddenly tears now
Irving sobbing, then coughing
couldn’t catch his breath
when John Toomey showed up
plopped down said,
“Can’t believe what happened to me, ”
then swallowing deeply
from his bottle of Thunderbird.
Well, why shouldn’t the man drink
homeless in the midst of a Coney Island winter.
Another swallow finished the wine
so Toomey looked around for a possible taste,
at last noticed Irving weeping
said, “What’s up, pal. Can’t be worse
than the mess I’m in.”
“More? ” I asked.
“You’re a good man, Bernstein,
not many like you.”
I marched out, came back, handed him the treasure
then gulping, then a smile saying,
“Now do a good deed
and make this guy stop moaning.”
Irving quiet now, tense, face white,
lips twitching, ready to begin again.
“Sad, ” I said to Toomey, “a woman jumped
to her death because she was
gonna be evicted, .”
Suddenly Irving blurted out,
“I didn’t know if I did
I would have asked my dad to help.”
A monumental gulp this time
amazed at Toomey’s fortitude, the pint gone,
staring, eyes glazed over
ready for the Arctic streets awaiting him.
Finally: “God seen
let her fly—
you ain’t the Almighty.”