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

bow

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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

Bow is the curved weapon that propels arrows by the tension of its string, used in hunting, war, and sport.

Detailed Definition
Bow appears in poetry as a potent emblem of potential energy and the arched readiness of force. In literary tradition it symbolizes the instrument of the archer. Poets invoke the bow to illustrate themes of the bent wood, the strung tension, and the cultural icon of the weapon that has armed gods, heroes, and lovers in the poetry of aim and release.
Example
Example in poetry:
The bow’s curved tension and sudden release center poems of archery and of desire; From Odysseus to Cupid, the strung bow carries the power of restrained force; “He drew the bow until the wood almost spoke” demonstrates the moment before flight; Educational verse shows the weapon as the perfect image of potential made kinetic; Poets return to the bow whenever intention must be held and then loosed.
Additional Notes
The bow’s stored tension and sudden release remain one of poetry’s most durable images of restrained and then loosed force. Technical vocabulary—draw weight, brace height, nocking point—can enrich the symbolic reading. Classroom discussion benefits from separating the weapon’s military, sporting, and erotic histories. Related objects include the arrow and the string. The bow is especially effective when the poet needs to stage a pause that is also a preparation.
Other Meanings of “bow”
Also Known As
Archery Bow Longbow Weapon of the Hunt Stringed Launcher
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