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

Atrophic

Disease
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

“Atrophic” means marked by the wasting, shrinking, or degeneration of tissue, muscle, or an organ. Figuratively, it can suggest enfeeblement, barrenness, or a loss of vitality.

Detailed Definition
In medical language, atrophic describes a bodily part reduced in size or function through disease, disuse, age, or impaired nourishment. Poets use the word to make decline seem physical and visible: an atrophic hand, landscape, spirit, or society may seem shrunken from its former strength. Its clinical precision can sharpen images of old age, famine, illness, neglect, and emotional exhaustion, while its figurative use presents vitality itself as something that can wither when deprived of care, memory, love, or sustaining purpose.
Example
Example in poetry:
Atrophic limbs withered under the winter sky (John Keats, "The Eve of St. Agnes"); His atrophic strength ebbed like the evening tide (Lord Byron, "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage"); Atrophic roots that could no longer draw life (William Wordsworth, "The Excursion"); The atrophic bough surrendered its final leaf (Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Alastor"); An atrophic heart frozen in long-forgotten grief (Christina Rossetti, "Monna Innominata")
Additional Notes
In poetic analysis, "atrophic" moves beyond its strict biological definition of muscular or tissue degeneration to serve as a potent metaphor for spiritual, emotional, or cultural decay. When analyzing Victorian or fin-de-siècle poetry (such as the works of Thomas Hardy or T.S. Eliot), look for atrophic imagery used to depict the fading of faith, the decline of aristocracy, or the modern erosion of human connection. Usage Tip: Advise students to examine how poets contrast atrophic stagnation with organic, generative nature—this contrast frequently highlights themes of mortality, industrialization, or artistic block. Related terms include dystrophic, inanition, wasting, and senescence.
Also Known As
Wasted Withered Degenerate Emaciated Wasting
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