Coenotes (cee’-no-tees): Repetition of two different phrases: one at the beginning and the other at the end of successive paragraphs. Note: Composed of anaphora and epistrophe, coenotes is simply a more specific kind of symploce (the repetition of phrases, not merely words).
I don’t know how I ended up in a field surrounded by a herd of circling deer—some the size of dump trucks. I don’t know why these things keep happening to me with things the size of dump trucks. I don’t work in construction or paving, but there they are circled around me, snorting and pawing the ground. The circle is starting to close. I am doomed. I try to scare them by clapping my hands. They rise on their hind legs and start to dance. I faintly hear “jingle Bells” and realize that one of them has a blue tooth speaker paired with a cellphone playlist consisting of pop Christmas music. I was completely weirded out. Where did they get deer-friendly electronics? It was bad enough I was in the middle of nowhere when spikes of light shot out of the ground, each one with a pole-dancing woman wearing a black spandex body suit. It was beautiful seeing them dancing with shafts of light. It was “Jingle Bell Rock” blaring out of the ground.
Then suddenly, it all disappeared and I was left alone in darkness. There was a full moon hanging on the horizon and billions of stars spread across the sky. I stood and raised my arms. Something grabbed them by the wrists. It lifted me off the ground and started swinging me back and forth, and eventually, in complete circles. Whatever it was lost its grip and I went flying across the field. I slammed into the front door of a little cottage that looked like a cartoon. A cartoon version of me opened the door and asked me what I wanted. I ask him “Who drew you?” He told me that I had drawn him in my Drawing class at the Community College 50 years ago. He told me I had drawn the cottage too. “No wonder!” I exclaimed. I never thought I was a very skilled artist. The guy standing there looked more like a road kill version of me than an artful rendering of my being in the world. I told him he depressed me. He changed into a stand-up comic and started telling art jokes to cheer me up.
He led off with: “What do you call a drawing of a cow? A moo-sterpiece.” It went on like this for five minutes, and then, I cut him off. At that minute, a sedan chair pulled up and carried me along the Garden State Parkway and dumped me out at the Union exit. It hurt. I got up and started walking. Two girls picked me up in a Land Rover. We went to a golf tournament at Bedminster. They were members of an environmental activist group targeting golf courses for the environmental damage they cause. We lit the golf carts on fire, headed for Newark Airport, and took off for Costa Rica. The girls had a condo there overlooking the ocean.
We’ve been planning our next mission for the past 6 years. I don’t think it’s going to happen. I miss New Jersey. I wonder what Jon Bon Jovi’s up to.
Definition 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.