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

Bloody Mary

Folklore
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 ghostly figure summoned by chanting her name in a mirror, said to reveal the future or kill

Detailed Definition
Originating from a blend of historical figures and folk ritual, Bloody Mary is a mirror-divination specter. In poetry, she represents the allure and peril of forbidden knowledge, adolescent rites of passage, and the blurred line between self and other in reflective surfaces.
Example
Example in poetry:
Bloody Mary serves as mirror-metaphor in confessional poetry: "Say her name thrice—what stares back is your own rage, your hidden face"; Poets use her to explore identity fragmentation: "Bloody Mary isn’t ghost—she’s every lie I’ve told myself"; In feminist verse, she reclaims female rage: "Not witch, but woman wronged—Bloody Mary bleeds truth in the glass"; Her ritual evokes adolescent fear: "We dared each other in the dark—now Bloody Mary knows our names"
Additional Notes
Bloody Mary: A mirror-summoned spirit from modern urban legend, often said to appear when her name is chanted in a dark bathroom. Origins may blend historical figures (Mary I of England, Mary Worth) with folkloric scrying practices. In poetry, she represents adolescent rites, female rage, or the uncanny domestic. Effective in confessional or horror-inflected verse; note her evolution from folk ritual to pop-culture trope.
Also Known As
Mary Worth Bloody Bones Mary Whales
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