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.

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



Conceit Meditation on Existence

Metaphysics
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 conceit that employs contemplative language and philosophical reflection to explore fundamental questions about being, existence, consciousness, and the nature of reality itself. The poem itself becomes philosophical inquiry.

Detailed Definition
Meditative conceits make poetry the vehicle for the deepest questioning about existence, inviting readers to contemplate alongside the poet what it means to be, to exist, to possess consciousness. By structuring poems as meditations rather than arguments or descriptions, poets suggest that some truths emerge only through sustained contemplative attention.
Example
Example in poetry:
John Donne’s “Meditation XVII” reflects on human interconnectedness (“No man is an island”); Emily Dickinson’s “I heard a Fly buzz – when I died –” meditates on the moment of death; George Herbert’s “The Flower” meditates on spiritual renewal; T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets” meditates on time, memory, and redemption; Sylvia Plath’s “Ariel” meditates on transcendence through self-annihilation; Rumi’s poetry meditates on the soul’s return to divine unity.
Additional Notes
Conceit Meditation on Existence turns introspection into universal inquiry—Herbert’s “The Flower” uses seasonal rebirth to meditate on divine mercy, showing how personal experience becomes metaphysical emblem through conceit.
Also Known As
Existential Conceit Ontological Meditation Being-Reflection
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