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

Foul Spell

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

A malicious incantation designed to harm, corrupt, or destroy, often cast with blood, bone, or whispered curses.

Detailed Definition
Foul Spells in poetry embody the fragility of language as weapon. They appear in Gothic and narrative verse as the poison of words—where a name, a rhyme, a sigh becomes a blade, and the poet’s voice is both spellcaster and victim.
Example
Example in poetry:
In Macbeth, the witches chant: “A drum, a drum! / Macbeth doth come”; the foul spell is woven in their incantations: “Thrice the brinded cat hath mewed”; in Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan,” the “demon-lover” casts a foul spell upon the caverns; in Keats’ “Lamia,” the transformation is a foul spell disguised as love; in Burns’ “Tam o’ Shanter,” the witch’s curse is a foul spell sung at the Kirk; in Yeats’ “The Second Coming,” the falcon cannot hear the falconer—this is the foul spell of disintegration; in Sylvia Plath’s “The Applicant,” the social machine casts a foul spell of conformity.
Additional Notes
Foul Spell is a malicious incantation cast with blood, bone, or whispered curses, designed to harm, corrupt, or destroy. Unlike hexes, foul spells are often elaborate, requiring ritual components and timing. In poetry, they symbolize the violence of language, the weight of words, and the permanence of harm. They appear in ballads of betrayal or gothic verse where curses linger for generations. Poets use them to explore the ethics of speech, the power of silence, and the cost of vengeance.
Also Known As
Curse Hex
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