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

An arm and a leg

Idiomatic Phrase
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

An extremely high price, whether monetary, emotional, or physical.

Detailed Definition
This hyperbolic idiom emphasizes exorbitant cost through bodily sacrifice. In poetry, it conveys the extremity of loss, devotion, or consequence—often in war elegies, love sonnets, or protest verse. Poets invoke it to dramatize the toll of ambition, loyalty, or survival, transforming abstract expense into visceral imagery. Its stark physicality resonates with themes of martyrdom, sacrifice, and the commodification of the self, making it especially potent in modern and contemporary works addressing trauma, inequality, or the price of integrity in compromised worlds.
Example
Example in poetry:
Satirical verse: “This concert ticket cost an arm and a leg, yet left me poorer in soul than coin”; War elegy: “He gave an arm and a leg for peace, yet returned to a nation that forgot his name”; Medical poem: “Chemo cost an arm and a leg—not just money, but hair, strength, and sleep”; Student reflection: “Editing this poem felt like it cost an arm and a leg—every line demanded blood.”
Additional Notes
This hyperbolic idiom emphasizes extreme cost through bodily sacrifice. In poetry, it’s used to convey the toll of war, love, art, or injustice—not just monetary expense. Its visceral imagery makes abstract sacrifice tangible. Note that “arm and a leg” implies irreplaceable loss, unlike “cost a fortune.” Poets may literalize it in veteran or disability narratives. Students should distinguish it from “cost an arm and a leg” (21163)—same meaning, but this version is more common in British English. Related concepts include “blood price” and “sacrificial economy.” In political poetry, it critiques systems that demand disproportionate payment from marginalized groups.
Also Known As
A king’s ransom
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