Something Concrete: A Collection

By Jeff Pregmon

Something Concrete continues a journey via an eclectic mix of poems and essays and features the novella, Dreaming of Incubus. This second collection of material pulls together a wide variety of subjects and inspirations from the last four years of writing.

Something Concrete, like its predecessor, is in such a format that it is not designed to be read from cover to cover because it has not been written in that manner. It is a journey across the bridges of the mind with the destination not one to be hurriedly reached.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 17, 2003
• ISBN: 9781469112688

Jeff Pregmon

Geographer turned writer Jeff Pregmon was born in 1972 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, but has spent most of his life in Illinois. While in the process of earning his degree from Illinois State University, his interest in creative writing was reawakened, sending him in this new direction. Something Concrete is his second collection. Jeff currently lives in the southwest suburbs of Chicago, Illinois.

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Copyright © 2003 by Jeff Pregmon.

Cover photo of Nicholson Viaduct courtesy of Matt Pregmon

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any

form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,

or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing

from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to

any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Contents

FOREWORD

SOMETHING CONCRETE

ARIZONA

SILENT NIGHT

LET ME DRIVE

SUPERNOVA

ORBITS

PINBALL BY STROBE LIGHT

WORDPLAY

TUMBLING GIRLS

WIN A PRIZE

PICTURE PERFECT

ELECTRONIC MESSAGING

CHASING BUTTERFLY

DREAMING OF INCUBUS

ONE FOR EMILY

FLUTTERS

NOBODY SAW IT COMING

EIGHT BALL, SIDE POCKET

QUEEN’S PAWN

NINETY NINE DAYS

FORMALLY

SILENT AUCTION

TRAVELERS

KITTATINNY

CHESTNUT STREET

MATINÉE

HARDLY A DECISION

MY BELATED APOLOGY

SASKATCHEWAN

EMOTIONALIST

FOR WHAT IT MEANT

DECIDING TO JUMP OFF A BRIDGE

LIMITED TIME

COOKING UP LIES

THE VOLCANO

LOST CAUSES

FREE ADVICE

BROKEN HEARTS

THE OTHER WAY

RIFTS

SIMON AND GARFUNKEL

BUN-BUN NEEDS A HUG

UNPREPARED

BE MY VALENTINE

NONPERSON

MEGRIMS

AN AFTERNOON

ROAD KILL

MISDIRECTION

SUBURBIA

JUST TWO KIDS

OBSCENITIES

RAG

THE SECRET WORLD OF JEN O’MALLEY

LAST ENGLISH CLASS

CRUSHING

JOURNEY PAST TWELVE

SEASONING

BROTHERS

FEAR

IN MIND

TWO DIMENSIONS

SMILEY EYES

APPLES

CONSEQUENCES

TINKER’S DAM

DANCE OF THE ELEPHANTS

SHORELINE

COME WITH ME

SUN DRESSED

CANDLELIGHT

HAVE IN COMMON

WEATHER INSIDE

PERFIDIES

BLUES

TEN

VALHALLA

RELATIVE WAYS

TO EMILY, WHO INSPIRES UNCLE J

FOREWORD

Reaction to my writing often raises the question of why I insist on being so abstruse. Complicated structures result from simple elements put together that ultimately depend upon the strength of their foundation and the quality of construction. While looking over material assembled for this collection I notice many of the same traits. While the finished product may appear complex, the basics are still twenty-six letters and an assortment of familiar symbols and punctuation. In a sense, something concrete.

In my style of writing, messages tend to be strongest when reduced to the fewest words necessary. Concrete is stronger in compression. While this may not provide immediate clarity, it opens numerous possibilities for interpretations that dually fit the purpose of entertaining and enlightening each reader on their own level. This book is not to be read like a set of plans requiring strict attention and adherence to every detail. Rather it is like the numerous symbols of a road map where every sentence and word is chosen to act as guides to the reader as they create and follow their own path.

A framework of reinforcing steel is added to carry tensile forces in concrete. Tension can be tough when life reveals it is not always the prettiest stretch of highway. Letters form words and words form sentences laid down like a grid of rebar to help put many of these ideas into a convenient context. Concepts linger in different places and different situations because it is often important to build in some redundancies for safety in the event of a structural failure.

Concrete does not dry; it cures. Pouring words onto paper is easy, but allowing them to form and relate to unique perspectives for all readers becomes a real challenge. When the words, names, and situations mean different things to different people, there are no steadfastly correct interpretations. Every mixture of concrete still requires work even after it has been poured.

Concrete continues to get stronger over its lifetime. Strength does not equate to rigidity. Upon rereading and reflection, the individual slabs making up this path are intended to expand and contract in places to withstand the harshest weather.

Something Concrete is another sidewalk across the landscape of the mind with many intersections and plenty of divergent trails leading off into the distance. The choice and direction taken lies entirely with each traveler. There are plenty of areas along the way to pull to the side and rest awhile, contemplating the trip from here to there. Journeys start anew every time a page turns. These roads and bridges have been built to last a long time . . .

SOMETHING CONCRETE

A cold rain falls on Election Day like knives upon my face. I tread across the concrete floor laid underneath this empty space. As days go by the dollar signs disappear from green front yards. They poured the sidewalk yesterday and I wrote my name before it got hard.

Runt tries to suckle a nipple long after his brothers have their fill. He blindly finds his decent meal after swallowing bitter pills. I retrace my steps across medians as gleaming cars roar past. Broken chunks of concrete fly from traffic lanes that wore out too fast.

So I slip into a lonely corner bar to find myself some love. And every other Sunday the preacher warns his flock about God above. I need to find the piglet that has built his house from stone. I’ll stay warm and dry beside the fire and eat the ham right from the bone.

ARIZONA

A canyon explorer named John Wesley Powell rode the untamed rapids of the river Colorado. His desert soon teeming with new populations who searched for themselves but died in the dust.

The girl followed her heart to the valley of the sun wishing each compromise would renew the fun. Good times meant for singles not a wife or a daughter and her marriage like a gold mine soon went bust.

As a pair of tossed dice her words rolled and tumbled like tumbleweeds blowing across empty plateaus. When she retraced her footsteps to pick up the pieces even the strongest of fabrics lay tattered and torn.

A saguaro stands lonely with its arms to the sky its silhouette surrenders to the full moon on high. At Glen Canyon dam the wild river lays captured and the waters of Lake Powell lap quietly to shore.

SILENT NIGHT

Suddenly the world went straight to hell. Twisted private love scenes all came crashing down in a fireball. Lonely strangers sharing drinks in the club car less than an hour from Chicago.

I barely saw her face and I’ll never know her name. She slowly passed me on the highway in the window of the southbound train.

Nobody wishes for restless Monday nights. The eerie sound of broken promises and broken dreams humming away in the idling of diesels on passing sidings up and down the line.

LET ME DRIVE

Steel belted soundtrack spinning between two painted lines as quietly the odometer clicksoff another mile. Her breath upon the window hides an old stretch of U.S. 54 sneaking down the hallway and out the front door.

A dawn sky turns indigo betweenviolet and blue with supple colors chasingaway shadows thrownby the moon. The sun rises like a dullorange beacon in the heat making ourtemperatures rise like noises from the street.

Not a whole lot of room leftbetween lemon and lime with all the pressuresbuilding tryingto borrow her time. She can come here forever to try and stay alive and whenever she wants to run away she lets me drive.

SUPERNOVA

Stars grow upand get a little older. Now and then they blow up in a bright supernova. These changes happen almost every day but to observe them up close means getting farther away. A chameleon can change its colors but a leopard can’t change its spots. As summer twilight darkens the ceiling the animals within come down into reach.

Nothing cools a fire burning deep inside this microscopic cosmos viewed with telescopic eyes. The fuzzy picture gets brighter than the sun despite all the dust surrounding every one. Light waves never break the rules but gravity tries to make them bend. Still the unyielding laws of physics point to explosion in the end.

ORBITS

Yesterday’s new moon took a piece of the sun following its path across the clear winter sky. Gravity pulls my orbit awry as a star passes closely and brightens the night.

Distance affects the visible signs when travelers pause on a journey through time. Planets in motion wander across imaginary lines chasing each other in darkened skies.

Far away from distant city lights frozen fields stretch out before sad hazel eyes. Galaxy arms spiral off into space and wrap around glowing centers in a cosmic embrace.

PINBALL BY STROBE LIGHT

Timing is of utmost importance and the cosmic accidents of birth sometimes seem out of place. I happened to mention this idea to a Reverend that I knew and it bothered him enough to request I get the hell out of his church. On the walk back across the grassy campus quadrangle beneath the warm twilight of Finals Week in early May, I began thinking he might be right in his insistence I take my story someplace else. Blind Faith is just a collection of great musicians as far as I’m concerned.

When I stopped inside the recreation building, hearing the crisp break of billiard balls turned my thoughts back to a girl I’ve been seeing lately. We sit in the same room for hours and I watch as she retreats deeper into her isolation away from the assorted pressures in her world. Every so often I get a peek into a window to let me know a little of what goes on inside of her. One of these days I am convinced she will open a door and allow me in so long as I promise not to tell anyone what I see. Some days I think I’ll just wind up sleeping with her before that happens.

Often I forget it is best for her to keep herself buried beneath that calculated exterior. Perhaps I am guilty of the same. It may be the reason we were drawn to each other while attending inane performances put on by the phony Theatre Department pricks. I clearly recall an evening about two years ago when we first started slipping away