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



Bellows

Household Objects
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 device that blows air into a fire. It suggests breath, revival, effort, or the tending of warmth.

Detailed Definition
Bellows are hinged bags with handles and a nozzle, squeezed to send a focused stream of air into coals. Their expanding and contracting body resembles lungs, making them useful in poems about breath, illness, desire, or speech. By reviving a fading fire, bellows can also represent patient labor, the preservation of home, and the human wish to keep warmth alive through a difficult season.
Example
Example in poetry:
The bellows inhale and exhale beside the hearth, giving the fire a creaturelike breath; A poet can compare bellows to a blacksmith’s lungs, emphasizing work, heat, and endurance; The child pumps the bellows too hard, and sparks rise like startled stars; In a winter poem, unused bellows gathering dust may suggest a home that has gone cold
Additional Notes
Bellows make air visible through its effect on flame. They work well in metaphors of encouragement, breath, anger, artistic effort, or a relationship being revived through attention.
Other Meanings of “Bellows”
Also Known As
Fireplace Bellows
Skip to main content