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

compressed saying

Form
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 brief, dense poetic statement conveying wisdom or insight in minimal words

Detailed Definition
A compressed saying is a highly condensed, aphoristic line or phrase that distills complex philosophical, emotional, or moral insight into minimal words, often using metaphor, paradox, or syntactic economy to maximize resonance. Rooted in gnomic poetry, proverbs, and epigrams, these sayings function as poetic kernels of wisdom—such as Emily Dickinson’s “Hope is the thing with feathers” or Shakespeare’s “All that glitters is not gold.” In longer poems, compressed sayings often serve as refrains, volta pivots, or closing insights, and their power derives from precision: every word must carry weight, with no room for redundancy or vagueness.
Example
Example in poetry:
“Less is more” (Robert Browning); “The child is father of the man” (Wordsworth); “Do not go gentle into that good night” (Dylan Thomas); “Hope is the thing with feathers” (Emily Dickinson); “All that glitters is not gold” (Shakespeare)
Additional Notes
A compressed saying is a pithy, aphoristic line that distills complex wisdom into minimal words—e.g., “Hope is the thing with feathers” (Dickinson). Rooted in gnomic and epigrammatic traditions, these lines rely on metaphor, paradox, or syntactic economy. In poetry, they often serve as refrains, volta pivots, or closing insights. Students should practice crafting such lines by stripping excess and focusing on resonant imagery.
Also Known As
Saying condensation short-hand condensation
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