A quiet notice V2Melody closes at midnight on , Spanish time.

Closes

A note from Richard

V2Melody will close at midnight on 20 January 2028

This site has been a retirement project in musical poetry: poems chosen with care and set to music, offered freely for as long as it felt right to keep the garden open.

The work no longer holds the place it once did in my life. I have gone as far with it as I wish to go. Like a sand mandala, it was made to be completed and then released. I am not attached to its permanence, and I do not believe any of it needs to last beyond the time it was given. The poems were already here before I arrived and began to experiment with them. They will still be here when these musical experiments, and indeed myself, have been swept away, like the sand of a mandala. Nothing has been lost.

I want a simpler end to my life, days of simple love and enjoyment with my wonderful wife of 20 years. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit that life.

From 4 November 2026 I will not be adding new poems or musical poems to the site.

The experimental music I am making now is on my Suno profile. Those pieces stay there, and are not added to this site.

Until midnight on 20 January 2028, Spanish time, everything remains available exactly as it is. That is when my VPS server contract comes to an end, and it will not be renewed. After that, the server will be switched off and the site will disappear.

The Mandala Is Finished explains this more fully.

Thank you to anyone who found a poem, a track, or a quiet moment here.

The pleasure was in the making.

Richard

Home › Glossary › Letter A

absent verse

Concept
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A conceptual or implied stanza or line that is omitted for artistic effect

Detailed Definition
Absent verse refers to a poetic technique or structural choice where a line, stanza, or expected metrical unit is deliberately omitted to create a sense of silence, loss, or anticipation; this strategic vacancy often amplifies thematic resonance or emotional impact by drawing attention to what is missing rather than what is present, functioning as a rhetorical and aesthetic device akin to caesura on a larger scale.
Example
Example in poetry:
A poem that ends abruptly before the expected final stanza, leaving the reader to imagine the conclusion; An elegy that omits the stanza describing the burial, creating emotional tension through absence; A sonnet sequence where one numbered sonnet is intentionally skipped to signify loss; A war poem that cuts off mid-narrative, with a blank space representing a soldier’s silenced voice
Additional Notes
Absent verse refers to a deliberate omission of a line or stanza that is implied by context or structure; often used to create tension, suggest loss, or invite reader interpretation—related to the concept of "negative space" in visual art.
Also Known As
missing stanza voided line absentia verse lacuna lyric Missing passage Negative space verse Phantom line Ghost line verse of absence
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