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

conkers

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

Conkers is a children's game in which horse chestnuts on strings are swung to strike and break the opponent's conker.

Detailed Definition
Conkers enters poetry as a seasonal emblem of autumn combat and the hard-shelled contest of strength. In British verse it symbolizes the schoolyard battle. Poets use the conker and the string to explore themes of preparation, the seasoning of the chestnut, and the cultural ritual of the conker season that marks the turning of the year.
Example
Example in poetry:
Conkers on their strings appear in autumn poems of British childhood and hard-fought pride; Verse celebrates the horse-chestnut that becomes a weapon and a trophy; “He swung the conker and the rival’s shell exploded” illustrates seasonal combat; Educational poetry presents the game as a local ritual of preparation and courage; Poets use the conker when the ordinary fruit of the tree must carry the full weight of contest.
Additional Notes
Conkers turns the horse-chestnut into both weapon and trophy and therefore supplies autumn poetry with a ready emblem of seasonal combat. The game’s schoolyard rituals of seasoning and stringing allow poets to linger on preparation as much as on the blow. Instructors may use the term to introduce the larger family of children’s seasonal games. Related objects include the chestnut itself and the various regional striking games. The word rewards attention to the transformation of the natural into the competitive.
Also Known As
Nut Game The Conker Challenge The Horse Chestnut Duel
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