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



Basho

Historical Figure
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

Japanese haiku master who elevated the form through travel and Zen-inspired simplicity

Detailed Definition
Matsuo Bashō transformed haiku into a profound art of nature, impermanence, and spiritual insight. His journeys and journals blend poetry with philosophy. Poets worldwide cite him as a model of aesthetic minimalism, mindfulness, and the poetic capture of fleeting moments.
Example
Example in poetry:
Matsuo Bashō appears in haiku-inspired Western poetry as a master of seasonal awareness; Poets emulate Bashō’s “narrow road” journey as a metaphor for spiritual quest; His frog-pond haiku is frequently alluded to in minimalist verse; Modern ecopoets cite Bashō to advocate for mindful observation of nature; Bashō’s Zen-infused aesthetics inspire poems on impermanence and stillness; Poets reference Bashō’s disciples to explore lineage and poetic transmission.
Additional Notes
Matsuo Bashō (1644–1694) was Japan’s greatest haiku poet, blending Zen aesthetics with travel and nature; his “narrow road” journeys and spare, evocative style revolutionized Japanese poetry; in Western poetry, Bashō symbolizes minimalism, impermanence (mono no aware), and spiritual travel—frequently alluded to by modernists like Pound and contemporary eco-poets exploring stillness, seasonality, and the haiku form’s philosophical depth.
Also Known As
Matsuo Bashō Matsuo Munefusa Matsuo Basho
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