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



Bautzen

Battles
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

A 1813 Napoleonic victory in Saxony during the War of the Sixth Coalition, though strategically indecisive.

Detailed Definition
Bautzen showcased Napoleon’s tactical skill even as his empire crumbled. In poetry, it appears as a bittersweet moment of fading glory—often used in Romantic and historical verse to reflect on the paradox of military brilliance amid political decline and the tragic arc of revolutionary empires.
Example
Example in poetry:
Bautzen, Napoleon’s 1813 victory, appears in German Romantic verse as a fleeting reprieve before collapse; A modern sonnet might frame Bautzen as the last gasp of imperial France; In a dramatic monologue, a Saxon conscript questions fighting for a foreign emperor; A free-verse elegy could mourn the coalition dead in Silesian spring fields; Contemporary poets use Bautzen to reflect on shifting alliances; A haiku might capture smoke over Bautzen’s river after the guns fall silent.
Additional Notes
Bautzen (1813) was a tactical win for Napoleon but failed to halt the Sixth Coalition’s advance; its ambiguity—victory without strategic gain—makes it a subtle reference in poetry exploring the hollowness of military success amid inevitable decline.
Also Known As
Battle of Bautzen
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