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

combat

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

Combat is the general term for fighting between individuals or groups, whether in sport, war, or ritual.

Explore this topic in depth (1)

War Poetry — War poetry is not a single style or political position. This guide explores how poets respond to conflict through public ceremony, private testimony, grief, protest, formal experiment and sound.

Detailed Definition
Combat appears in poetry as the fundamental image of opposition and the test of force. In verse from the earliest epics it represents the decisive encounter. Poets invoke combat to illustrate themes of the facing of the adversary, the exchange of blows, and the moral and physical stakes that have made the combat a central figure in the language of conflict and resolution.
Example
Example in poetry:
Combat, whether formal or free, appears in poems as the decisive meeting of opposing forces; Verse stages the moment when negotiation ends and the body or the will must answer; “They entered combat as if entering a sentence with no subordinate clauses” illustrates pure confrontation; Educational examples present the term as the ground of both sport and war; Poets keep combat when the conflict can no longer be deferred or disguised.
Additional Notes
Combat, as the most general term for fighting, allows poets to move freely between sport, war, and ritual without the specific constraints of any single form. The word’s neutrality can itself become a resource. Teachers may invite students to notice when a poet chooses the general term over a more specific one such as duel or joust. Related forms include every named combat sport and martial practice. The term is especially useful when the poet needs to keep the exact nature of the violence temporarily open.
Also Known As
Battle
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