Mesozeugma (me’-so-zyoog’-ma): A zeugma in which one places a common verb for many subjects in the middle of a construction.
“Cows, wagons, worms and earthquakes move up, down, over across, and under my breakfast toast.” Marlon Sweezy.
Sweezy was a 17th-century poet known as “Who?” His works were burned with the exception of the fragment quoted above. Literary scholars have come to the conclusion that the fragment is part of the longest poem ever written “Brick Carriage.” “Brick Carriage” is cited by Lady Rich who was Sweezy’s Tarot Card reader who attributed the quote above to him. She gives us little insight into why his works were burned, aside from her cryptic reference to them as “a plague that I survived.”
She said whenever she read his cards, there was a brawl. Inevitably the cards would predict dire futures for Sweezy. He would be poisoned, stabbed, strangled, drawn and quartered, or worse. Sweezy would jump from his chair and throw it at Lady Rich who allowed it because Sweezy paid handsomely to have his cards read, plus, she had two attendants who would throw Sweezy out on the street and kick him a couple of times.
Sweezy was reportedly “the most handsome man who ever walked the face of the earth.” He was charming and witty and knowledgeable on many subjects. He knew why the earth was flat. He knew where the wild geese go. It was rumored that he was an alchemist adept at transforming peas into little golden nuggets. He had so many trysts that “trysts” was almost renamed “Sweezys.” “Sweezys” failed to catch on due to the animosity he had engendered among the fathers of the daughters he had seduced, made promises to, and then, left standing in tears alone at altars throughout Europe. Instead, “Sweezy” replaced “blighter” as a term of contempt. Being called a “Sweezy” was worse than “piece of shit” or “scum bag.” Sweezy wrote it off as jealousy or the over-protective nature of most fathers. But “Sweezy” becoming an insult was not why his poems were hunted down and destroyed.
Lady Rich tells us in her memoirs that there was a terrifying property the texts possessed and this was the reason Sweezy’s works were routed out and destroyed—torn asunder, run over by large delivery carriages, and set afire.
Reading Sweezy’s poetry made people deathly ill and even killed them. They would suffer from stomach cramps, leg tremors, flatulence, sore throat, fever, ringing ears, double vision, heart palpitations, and diarrhea. Men had the added affect of impotence. The list of symptoms is long, harsh, and terrible. Older people (35+) risked an agonizing death, in a fetal position on a hard wood-slatted hospital bed, spending their last hours scratching their rectums and howling. Some depressed people read Sweezy’s poems hoping to die. They were called “poemacides” or “Sweezacides.”
We have no record of how reading Sweezy’s poetry would cause one to contract the disease. Sweezy died from “Organ Expulsion Syndrome”—the evacuation of one’s organs in a fatal bowel movement lasting one week. He was delirious during his hellish descent into death and could not be questioned. His is the only documented case of “Organ Expulsion Syndrome.”
Thank God the poetry-borne disease is not communicable. Thank God all of Sweezy’s works were burned. During his lifetime Sweezy refused to comment on the debilitating effect his poetry had on readers. When questioned, he would smile slyly and pretend to cough, perpetuating the greatest mystery in literary history and raising the question: How many have been killed by poetry?
Definitions courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
The Daily Trope is available on Amazon in paperback under the title of The Book of Tropes for $9.95. It is also available in Kindle format for $5.99.
The Daily Trope 