Polysyndeton (pol-y-syn’-de-ton): Employing many conjunctions between clauses, often slowing the tempo or rhythm. (Asyndeton is the opposite of polysyndeton: an absence of conjunctions.)
It was a full moon. I looked out the window, and I saw a tree, and a folded up newspaper, and a bicycle, and a lawn grown out of control and I was shocked, and stunned, and panic stricken. I had just mowed the lawn three weeks ago. How did it grow a foot? I’m afraid the lawn vigilantes will get me. They travel the neighborhood at night looking for unruly lawns. They have a fleet of rotary gasoline push mowers with blades set to ground zero. When you hear them starting outside your house, you know your free-range lawn is about to be scalped down to the dirt. It takes months to grow a new lawn, but the lesson is learned: keep your lawn neatly trimmed.
Then I heard the dreaded sound: the fleet of vigilante lawnmowers cranking up. Suddenly they went silent and I heard revved-up weed eaters coming into my yard. It was the resistance—the handful of brave neighbors moving toward the vigilantes in a tight formation holding their roaring weed eaters like lances aimed at the vigilantes’ faces. The vigilantes broke and ran, leaving their mowers behind, driving off in their Jeep Cherokees, Lincoln Navigators, and Ford Explorers. The resistance shut off their weed eaters and stealthily receded through the shrubs planted around my property’s border.
I vowed to mow my lawn the next day. I laughed as I piled up the vigilante lawnmowers in the gutter in front of my house. I had taken their gas caps off and was going to set them on fire. Up they went! Then, boom, one of them exploded. I had forgotten to remove one of the mowers’ gas caps. My shoe caught fire. Instead of stop, drop, and roll, I ran for the garden hose on the side of my house. I put out the fire and called 911. After two weeks in the hospital I came home. Somebody had mowed my lawn and the pile of burnt lawnmowers in the gutter had been hauled away. Marion Phipps, my college professor neighbor, was there to greet me when I got home. We embraced, and embraced some more, and a little bit more. I showed her the video I had made of “The Battle of the Lawn.” Then, we watched some TV, and had a few drinks, and listened to some music, and talked. Eventually, we got married. When he grows up, our son will mow the lawn once a week. In the meantime, Marion is in charge of lawn mowing.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)
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