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

buffoon

Archaic Terms
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 person whose silly behaviour provides comic relief; in poetry, he serves as a foil to seriousness, a figure of ridicule, or a reminder of the foolishness in human nature.

Detailed Definition
Buffoons appear in poetry as figures of excess, humiliation, or comic truth-telling. Poets used them to critique power, expose vanity, or provide contrast to seriousness. Their exaggerated behaviour allows poets to explore the role of laughter, performance, and folly within social and moral frameworks.
Example
Example in poetry:
The buffoon capers near the throne, speaking truth disguised as jest; In painted verse the buffoon laughs so kings may hear themselves; Poets grant the buffoon licence to wound with humour’s blade; The buffoon’s folly masks a wisdom too sharp for sober speech
Additional Notes
Buffoon carries theatrical associations, often allowing foolish figures to speak truths others cannot. In poetry, buffoons may appear comic but also function as social critics, exposing hypocrisy through exaggeration. The term differs from clown in emphasising deliberate performance rather than rustic simplicity. Poets exploit this ambiguity to balance humour and insight, especially in satirical or courtly verse.
Also Known As
Fool Jester Clown jack-pudding
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