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.

I want a simpler life, without the hassle of being online. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit the life I want.

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.

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 B

Bardo

Life And Death
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 intermediate state between death and rebirth in Tibetan Buddhist belief. It can symbolize transition, uncertainty, and spiritual passage.

Detailed Definition
Bardo is a Tibetan Buddhist term for an interval or transitional state, most famously the passage between death and a new existence. Poets may use it literally in spiritual contexts or figuratively for moments when identity, grief, or consciousness seems suspended between former and future selves. Its associations with visions, disorientation, and release make it useful for poems concerned with dying, transformation, or the threshold between worlds.
Example
Example in poetry:
In a poem using bardo, the speaker may inhabit an in-between state between bodily death and whatever follows; A grieving poet can describe the days after a death as a bardo, when ordinary time feels suspended; The image "my mother stood in the bardo of the hospital corridor" uses the term to suggest a threshold between outcomes; A bardo poem can use fragmented stanzas and shifting voices to convey spiritual and emotional uncertainty
Additional Notes
Bardo comes from Tibetan Buddhist traditions and names an in-between state. Poets may use it beyond its religious context to evoke suspension, disorientation, transformation, or the threshold between identities.
Other Meanings of “Bardo”
Also Known As
Intermediate State In-Between State Antarabhava
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