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.

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

Albatross

Symbolism
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

Albatross: A symbol of burden and guilt, originating from Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," where the slain bird represents a curse that the mariner must carry as a constant reminder of his transgression.

Detailed Definition
Derived from Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the albatross symbolizes a heavy moral or emotional burden. After the mariner kills the bird, his shipmates hang it around his neck as a sign of blame. Poets use the image to represent lasting guilt, public shame, inherited trauma, or a mistake that continues to shape a speaker's life. Its power comes from making an invisible weight physically visible.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Baudelaire's "The Albatross," the trapped bird symbolizes the poet, majestic in imagination but awkward and mocked in ordinary society; A speaker can describe an albatross dragging its wings across a deck to suggest the burden of exceptional sensitivity; An albatross circling above a storm may symbolize a soul seeking freedom beyond human conflict; A dead albatross hung from a sailor's neck can represent guilt and the consequences of violating nature
Additional Notes
An albatross suggests a lasting burden, especially guilt or a consequence that cannot be easily escaped. The image comes from Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” in which the bird becomes a sign of wrongdoing. Look for whether the burden is deserved, imposed, or imagined.
Other Meanings of “Albatross”
Also Known As
Mariner’s Albatross
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