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



Cursed

Folklore
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

Under a curse or divine condemnation; marked by supernatural doom or misfortune, carrying connotations of irredeemable evil or profound misery.

Detailed Definition
“Accursed” intensifies the notion of being cursed, often implying eternal damnation or profound misfortune. In poetry, it heightens dramatic tension and moral judgment, especially in tragic or religious contexts. Found in works from Milton to Blake, the term evokes a sense of irrevocable fate or divine wrath. Its harsh consonants and solemn weight lend gravitas to descriptions of sin, exile, or punishment, making it a powerful rhetorical device in elevated diction.
Example
Example in poetry:
Cursed; A modern poet writes: “She was cursed by a widow’s sigh—a child born with eyes too old, and hands that withered every rose she touched”;

"Accursed be he that trusteth in man," echoes biblical diction often adopted by Puritan poets; In Coleridge’s "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," the crew hangs the albatross around the Mariner’s neck as an "accursed" burden; Shelley writes of "accursed gold" that corrupts the soul in Queen Mab; "Accursed fate!" cries the tragic hero in Elizabethan drama; Milton refers to "accursed" fruit in Paradise Lost, linking it to original sin; An accursed silence fell upon the hall when the prophecy was spoken.
Additional Notes
Cursed describes a state of magical affliction passed through blood, oath, or broken taboo, often resulting in decay, isolation, or eternal torment. In folklore, curses are not random—they are karmic consequences, invoked with precision and ritual. In poetry, the cursed figure embodies inescapable fate, familial sin, or the burden of legacy. Think of Oedipus, the Wandering Jew, or the Lady of Shalott—each cursed by choice or prophecy. Poets use the curse to explore guilt, inheritance, and the weight of history.

“Accursed” intensifies moral or divine judgment beyond mere “cursed,” often appearing in epic or tragic contexts to denote irrevocable doom; it frequently modifies nouns like “race,” “land,” or “blood” to evoke inherited sin or fate, common in Miltonic or Puritan-influenced poetry.
Also Known As
Hexed Charmed accursed damned doomed curst hag-ridden
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