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 F

fencing

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

Fencing is the sport of fighting with swords according to rules, emphasizing skill, timing, and strategy.

Detailed Definition
Fencing enters poetry as an elegant metaphor for verbal or intellectual combat and the thrust and parry of exchange. In literary tradition it symbolizes the civilized duel. Poets use the foil and the riposte to explore themes of measured aggression, the touch that scores, and the art of defense and attack that mirrors the dialogues of wit and power.
Example
Example in poetry:
Fencing’s measured distance and flashing point supply poets with images of intellectual and physical dialogue; Verse of the salle stages the conversation of steel that ends in a touch; “They fenced with words until the final riposte left no reply” illustrates formal combat; Educational poetry shows the sport as the civilized form of the duel; Poets return to fencing whenever attack and defense must share the same elegant grammar.
Additional Notes
Fencing’s measured distance, right-of-way rules, and flashing point create a formal grammar of attack and defense that poets have long treated as a model of intellectual combat. The sport’s three weapons—foil, épée, sabre—allow fine distinctions of register. Classroom discussion can usefully examine how the polite language of the piste coexists with the reality of the touch. Related forms of combat include the duel and the various forms of swordplay. The image remains powerful because every phrase of the body can be answered by another.
Also Known As
Swordplay The Art of Fencing Duel with Blades
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