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

blind man's buff

Games
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

Blind man's buff is a game in which a blindfolded player tries to catch others, who may tease or evade.

Detailed Definition
Blind man's buff appears in poetry as a potent symbol of groping in darkness and the pursuit of the unseen. In literary contexts it represents the blind search for contact. Poets invoke the blindfold and the buff to illustrate themes of limited perception, the vulnerability of the seeker, and the social dynamics of evasion and capture in the game of human relations.
Example
Example in poetry:
Blind man’s buff’s hooded seeker and teasing circle supply poets with images of groping pursuit; Traditional verse uses the game for the vulnerability of the one who cannot see; “He turned in the dark while their laughter moved the air” demonstrates sensory limitation; Educational poetry shows the blindfold as the temporary loss of ordinary power; The game becomes a figure for any search conducted without full knowledge.
Additional Notes
Blind man’s buff stages the vulnerability of the unseeing seeker and the mixed motives of those who can see. The game’s hood or blindfold becomes a ready emblem of any limitation of knowledge. Classroom discussion can usefully examine the ethics of the teasing circle. Related games include hoodman blind and the various forms of tag. Poets who choose the image often wish to explore power asymmetries that are temporary yet still real.
Also Known As
hoodman blind
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