Category Archives: epizeugma

Epizeugma (ep-i-zoog’-ma): Placing the verb that holds together the entire sentence (made up of multiple parts that depend upon that verb) either at the very beginning or the very ending of that sentence.

Driving to Rhode Island was always an adventure. I couldn’t find it on my GPS. Google maps said it was too small for their database and nobody went there anyway. I had an old paper map that I used when I went on vacation there. They still had human toll takers that said “Welcome” when you paid the toll to cross into the state. It was ass-backwards, but if you yelled “Chowda” they let you in for free.

I was headed for Woonsocket. Whenever I said it, I envisioned a giant wall outlet. I couldn’t help it with my poetic sensibility. I stayed in a motel perched on the Blackstone River. I was warned years ago never to even dip my toe in it or my toe would melt off my foot. I thought the motel proprietor was teasing me, but I stayed away from the river anyway, especially when I saw a basketball sneaker float by with what looked like an ankle sticking out.

But I loved Woonsocket, especially exploring all the abandoned buildings and writing poems about them. I wrote this one after exploring an abandoned shoe factory:

“There’s no business like shoe business

It’s like no business I know

It has soles, but also heels

And buckles and bows

So, let’s get with a shoe!”

I wrote this sitting on the abandoned factory floor with my head full of shoe business images, banging away on my I-pad with a parade of motorcycle boots, loafers, wingtips and golf shoes dancing in my head, stomping like step dancers at an Irish cultural festival making me dizzy with poetic inspiration and heating up my I-pad.

This was the essence of my Woonsocket experience. It’s why I came back year after year. But this year, things were a little different. I had met a woman down the hall named Hiney Birch. We hit it off immediately and had dinner at the “Chowda House” the first night we met. I got drunk and chased her around with a live lobster I grabbed from the lobster tank. We were thrown out of the “Chowda House.”

We went back to my room and Hiney recited the “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” It was fascinating, but it made me thirsty and I fell asleep from a feeling of being becalmed. When I woke up in the morning Hiney was gone and she had checked out of the motel. I was heartbroken until I discovered she had stolen my false teeth from the jar next to my bed.

I opened the door and my uppers were hanging there on a length of fishing line rigged with a large fishing hook with a message hanging from it: “Fishing is wishing. Catch yourself a dream.” I jumped in my car and headed for the beach at Newport. It took awhile to get there. I rented a fishing rod and rigged my uppers to the hook and baited them with a squid.

I waded into the ocean and cast my line. I was going to catch a tuna! A shark! A swordfish! Instead, I hooked into a bicycle someone had thrown overboard. It was great fun reeling it in! When I pulled it out on the sand I realized it wasn’t rusted. It was a magnesium bike! I did some research that afternoon and found out it was a Pinarello Ak61 Magnesium Dogma—the kind of bike Lance Armstrong rode! There was a plastic tag in its tool bag with Armstrong’s name on it! I had “caught” the missing bike from Armstrong’s cheating scandal. I sold it for $125,000 to a film producer making a movie about Armstrong titled “Two-Wheeled Cheat.” Hiney was right—it wasn’t a fish but I had caught myself a dream.

What can I say? Who the heck was Hiney anyway? I’ll never know, but I’ve had my dentures replaced and will be headed to Woonsocket again this summer.

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.

Epizeugma (ep-i-zoog’-ma): Placing the verb that holds together the entire sentence (made up of multiple parts that depend upon that verb) either at the very beginning or the very ending of that sentence.

Singing Christmas carols, Scottish folk songs, and oldies, it was from the rum more than anything else. I was wearing a wreath on my head. Uncle Vic had his shirt unbuttoned to his belly button. Aunt Cat was holding her boobs and wiggling. Uncle Tom was showing off his plumber’s butt, bending over the piano. Aunt Millie kept raising her skirt, showing off her undies with Santa’s face on the front, complete with a beard. Uncle Joe had a stocking hanging out of his pant’s fly. The triplets were wearing Trump wigs and were kicking an inflatable sex doll around the Christmas tree.

Once a year, my family goes insane on Christmas Eve and does these things, and more. I tried to find out for nearly my entire life, why? Nobody knew what our ethnicity was, so I couldn’t find its cultural origins. Plus, the tradition was so much fun, they didn’t want to lose it. As far as they could see it was unique to our family. Nobody else in the world celebrated Christmas Eve like we did.

Then it happened. Right before he died, my great-grandfather Bart told me he had a story to tell. I was visiting him at VA Home where he lived for free because he was disabled from serving in the Army. He had lost a leg, and an eye, and a hand in combat in the Korean War, where, as he put it “My mind was blown beyond repair.” Although he had an artificial leg, he preferred his electric wheelchair. In his later years he was awarded a Tesla wheelchair by the VA. It went like a bat out of hell and Bart had several collisions. One more thing: he had invented a small compact wheelchair tire inflator that made him a ton of money, and almost, a Nobel Prize.

Now, he was going to tell me the BIG SECRET. His breathing was shallow as he began. This is what my great-grandfather told me: “Your anscestors Woke up in Utah before it was Utah. There weren’t even cave men. Nobody else was there. They were alone. They were on the banks of what we now call the Great Salt Lake. They built a fire and sat there trying to figure out where they came from. Most of them believed they came from a distant galaxy and were dumped by the lake as punishment because they had committed crimes. At least they recognized each other, even if they were like strangers in every other way. They didn’t like where they had landed, so they walked away together eating prickly pear cactus and jackrabbits roasted on sticks. They hiked for 140 days and 140 nights, reaching what we now call Lake Tahoe, depleted and nearly dead. But lo and behold, there was a thriving little town there called Ponderosa. Your ancestors were shocked and grateful and immediately moved to assimilate, mostly working in the casino and hotel businesses. They adopted “Casino” as the family’s last name.

It was December and everybody in Ponderosa kept talking about “Christmas.” It was a celebration. Your anscestors wanted to be a part of it, so they studied it and discovered Santa Clause. They practiced going ‘Ho, Ho, Ho’ and bought red suits to wear on Christmas Day. They got a tree and decorated it with soup can lids, drilled with a hole and tied to the tree’s branches with pieces of yarn. They bought presents for each other and put them in pillowcases under the tree.

Christmas Eve had come! First they . . .”

Great-Grandfather started choking and gripping his throat. He could no longer talk. Green smoke came out of his mouth. His nurse screamed and ran out of the room. Two creatures with gigantic heads suddenly materialized at the foot of the bed. Like all of us Casinos he had a boil on the back of his neck. One of the creatures lanced it and great-grandfather deflated. They folded great-grandfather lengthwise, neatly rolled up great-great grandfather, put him in a gym bag, and vanished. The nurse came back in the room and remembered nothing. She told me to get out or she would call security.

Although I was frustrated that great-great grandfather couldn’t finish his story, I felt that I was closer to knowing where my family originated. But, I’ll never know how they came up with our weird Christmas Eve tradition. We were the Casinos, and that was that.

So, I’m sitting here watching this year’s celebration when Uncle Billiam hops by with pencils in his ears and nostrils, and a tomato in each hand.

Merry Christmas.

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.

Epizeugma (ep-i-zoog’-ma): Placing the verb that holds together the entire sentence (made up of multiple parts that depend upon that verb) either at the very beginning or the very ending of that sentence.

Trucks, cars, snow plows, ride mowers, motorcycles, motor-scooters were all going. The sun had risen and it was a beautiful summer morning. Some people were walking along carrying powered-up chainsaws and weed eaters. They added a special effect to the cacophony and the smell of 2-cycle exhaust fumes added a sweet haze to the bland smell of unleaded gas.

This was the annual celebration of the advent of internal combustion: enclosed explosions making things spin: from driveshafts to mower blades— taking people places in their cars, to harvesting the week’s grass growth, transforming it into good-smelling lawn clippings.

I hated it. I had nicknamed my neighbor “Mow” because he mowed two acres every day, starting at 6.30 in the morning. He had a giant lawnmower—it was like a cruise ship with blades. It is loud. It wakes me up and makes me mad. I got a sniper scope for my .22. I was going to shoot him in the ear as he rode by my back porch. Then, push his corpse off the lawnmower, and then, run him over until he was just an unidentifiable pile of gristle. The vultures would take care of him and I would sleep until 9.00! I aimed at him a couple of times, but I couldn’t pull the trigger. I just wasn’t a cold-blooded killer. So, I decided to kill his lawn instead.

I went to Ace Hardware and bought a back-pack weed sprayer. I bought a derivative of Agent Orange made in China named Agent Tomato. It was probably illegal. I had to wear rubber gloves and a face mask. Agent Tomato was “guarantee to kill all roots.” I took it as a bad translation, but understood what it meant: it would kill grass! I bought five gallons.

My plan was to spray Mow’s lawn while he was at work. He’d never know what hit him. Also, and this was diabolical, Agent Tomato’s label said “Keep away pets for one day from spaying.” Another typo, but I understood what it meant: Mow’s obnoxious mutt would die! Almost immediately, I vowed instead to kidnap the mutt and hold it hostage for two days. I was no killer.

I mixed the Agent Tomato in my garage in one of my maple syrup buckets, and then, filled the sprayer. I put on my face mask and donned my balaclava, put on my gloves, and hoisted the sprayer up onto my back.

It would be a lot of work, but it was worth it to halt the internal combustion wake-up calls. So I went at it.

It took nearly all day. I had been done for about 30 miniutes when Mow pulled into his driveway. I watched him through my bird-watching binoculars. He sniffed the air and went inside. He came right back outside calling the mutt. But, I had the mutt chained in my basement wearing a muzzle.

The next morning I slept until 9.30. It was so quiet, I thought I was in a library. I went out on my back porch and surveyed the scene. Mow’s lawn was dead! Mow was sitting in the middle his yard crying. He said: “My wife left me and took the kids 2 months ago, now, my dog has left me, and so has my lawn. What can I do?”

I told him to suck it up and get a life, I had my own problems. Agent tomato had given me a horrible rash on my forehead. I turned the mutt loose and went to see my dermatologist Dr. Skinner. He told me to soak my forehead in salad dressing and swish my head around in a bowl full of romaine lettuce and six croutons twice a day for a month.

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.

Epizeugma (ep-i-zoog’-ma): Placing the verb that holds together the entire sentence (made up of multiple parts that depend upon that verb) either at the very beginning or the very ending of that sentence.

White, yellow and a few other colors were slowly painted. Accuracy was paramount. Time was not a consideration. I had read the bestseller by Dr. Bob Reggi titled “There is No Time For Now.” He argues that time is like a fried egg—flat with a bump in the middle—either hard, medium, or gooey. It was called the time-yoke, holding the circling complexities of the moment together with the “eggcentric” flow of bemusement taking what was once and violently subduing it into what is no more.

I had used Reggi’s humble and unconfused writings as a foundation, motivating my painting. I had painted 645 fried eggs—sunny side up, to over easy, to over well. It was difficult capturing the shades and nuances of the yolks—all seemingly yellow, but in reality more complex than that. In order to have a ready supply of fried eggs as models for my paintings, I built a chicken coop and filled it with chickens—Rhode Island Reds. The egg business was modestly successful.

I also opened a galley to sell my fried egg paintings. I sold none until one day a fleet of Chevy Suburban’s pulled up in front of my gallery. Dr. Bob Reggi stepped out of one of the Suburban’s. He said, “I’ll have a look around.” I was stunned. I ran inside to get his book and a pen so he could autograph it for me.

After a couple of hours he came out of the gallery. He said “Remarkable. I’ll take them all. How much?” I said, “I reckon $650,000.00, plus your autograph.” He wrote a check and autographed his book. They loaded the paintings into a Ryder truck and took off.

A few days later I read that Dr. Reggi had fallen into a vat of uncooked scrambled eggs and drowned. I was devastated and hoped that my paintings hadn’t played a role in his demise. I went to his estate sale and saw that all of my paintings had been slashed and piled in a heap in the driveway. I asked Dr. Reggi’s estate sale manager about my paintings. He told me that after purchasing my paintings he could no longer believe his fried theorem. The repetitive inept depictions of the eggs had repulsed him and rendered him despondent. In his fevered sorrow, he turned to uncooked scrambled eggs. The night he died, he was going to go swimming in a huge vat of cracked and whisked eggs. When he dove in, his head hit the side of the vat and cracked like an egg. The irony wasn’t lost on the estate sale manager—he laughed.

I don’t know what Dr. Reggi was looking for in the vat of eggs. He was a scientist, so his motives were sincere. Clearly, his death was an accident, so I’m off the hook. Although, he may have committed suicide by intentionally diving into the side of the vat.

I have started painting pictures of uncooked scrambled eggs. It is a compulsion I can’t control. Maybe I’m searching for the truth. In the meantime, I am having a giant vat constructed. I am going to replicate Dr. Reggi’s’ “egg dive” experiment. Don’t worry: I will wear a helmet.

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.