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

Combatant

Military
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 or force engaged in fighting. The term emphasizes participation in conflict rather than a particular rank or weapon.

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
A combatant may belong to a formal army or, in some contexts, an irregular force taking part in hostilities. Poets can use the word to avoid heroic titles and focus instead on the shared condition of those who fight. It may carry legal, political, or moral implications, especially when a poem asks who is permitted to bear arms and who is counted as innocent. The broadness of the term allows it to describe visible fighters as well as inner forces locked in struggle.
Example
Example in poetry:
“Each combatant carried a different version of the truth”; “The poem names every combatant before questioning the cause of the war”; “A fallen combatant is remembered as a person rather than a statistic”; “The word combatant can include opposing sides without declaring either one heroic”
Additional Notes
A combatant is anyone actively engaged in fighting, whether an individual soldier, a group, or an organized force. The term is broader than infantryman and does not by itself identify rank, nationality, or weapon. In poetry, calling someone a combatant can sound formal or impersonal, inviting questions about identity, duty, and moral responsibility. Related terms include belligerent, fighter, and noncombatant.
Also Known As
Fighter Belligerent gladiator Warrior
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