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 C

checkerboard

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

Checkerboard is the checkered board used for draughts or checkers, with alternating colored squares.

Detailed Definition
Checkerboard appears in poetry as a simpler emblem of the patterned field and the jumping captures of the game. In verse it represents the accessible contest. Poets invoke the checkerboard to illustrate themes of the regular pattern, the forced path of the pieces, and the cultural image of the board that has served as a metaphor for the structured yet jumpable spaces of life.
Example
Example in poetry:
The checkerboard’s alternating squares map the field of draughts in poems of simple strategy; Verse uses the pattern for any contest of forced jumps and clear paths; “He moved across the checkerboard of the city like a crowned piece” illustrates controlled advance; Educational lines show the board as the accessible sibling of the chessboard; Poets invoke its regularity when the rules of the game are transparent yet still decisive.
Additional Notes
The checkerboard’s alternating squares create a field of forced jumps and clear paths that poets can map onto any binary contest. The board’s simplicity contrasts usefully with the more complex hierarchy of the chessboard. Classroom discussion can explore how the same geometric pattern supports both draughts and the metaphorical checkerboard of experience. Related boards include the chessboard and the merels board. The image is effective when the rules must remain transparent yet still binding.
Also Known As
draughtboard checkers board
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