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 B

Bealin

Dialect
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

Festering or throbbing with pain; a wound or sore that is infected and swollen.

Detailed Definition
"Bealin" (also "beelin") describes the particular pain of a festering, infected wound, the angry, pulsing quality of inflammation. In Scots poetry it appears as a vivid physical image and sometimes as a metaphor for social or emotional grievance that has been allowed to fester rather than being resolved. The word is unsparing in its physical accuracy, and it belongs to the Scots tradition of refusing to prettify pain or injury. Its use in verse signals an insistence on the material reality of the body and the world it inhabits.
Example
Example in poetry:
"Bealin" means an inflamed sore or festering wound, used metaphorically for deep resentment; A poet might write: "His bitterness was a bealin wound / that nae soothing herb could cure or bound." for emotional festering; "The bealin sore of history's shame / still throbs beneath the nation's name." applies the term to collective grievance; "She nursed her grief like a bealin cut, / pressing the pain tight, hard-shut." shows how suppressed feeling worsens; "A bealin heart is worse than stone — / at least the stone feels not alone." offers philosophical reflection; "He hid his bealin pride within / beneath a calm and courteous grin." explores hidden pain with irony
Additional Notes
Bealin brings the bodily and physical vividly into Scots verse, rooting language in lived, sensory experience. A "bealin" wound is not merely sore — it pulses, it suppurates, it demands attention. The word has strong onomatopoeic qualities; the sound of it suggests throbbing discomfort. In a figurative sense, a person can be "bealin" with rage or indignation, meaning they are seething and barely contained — this extension into emotional life is characteristic of Scots, which often maps physical sensation directly onto inner states. Students should note this as a fine example of how Scots lexicon bridges body and feeling.
Also Known As
Bealing Bellowing
Skip to main content