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.

I want a simpler life, without the hassle of being online. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit the life I want.

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.

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 G

Grease someone's palm

Idiomatic Phrase
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

To bribe someone, typically with money, using the image of making transactions smoother.

Detailed Definition
This idiom exposes corruption, transactional ethics, or systemic rot. In satirical or political poetry (Dryden, Auden), it critiques power structures where access requires payment. The tactile metaphor (grease = slipperiness, moral stain) evokes disgust or cynicism. Poets use it to explore inequality—how money oils doors closed to the poor. Its visceral imagery suits gritty urban verse or historical poems about patronage, where art or justice bends to financial influence, revealing the grime beneath official surfaces.
Example
Example in poetry:
Satirical verse: “Permits flow when palms are greased—city hall’s open secret”; In corruption elegy: “Justice delayed until someone greased the palm of power”; Historical reflection: “Explorers greased palms of chiefs to claim stolen land”; Noir poem: “To see the file, grease someone’s palm—truth costs in unmarked bills”.
Additional Notes
This idiom exposes corruption or transactional ethics. In satirical poetry (Dryden, Auden), it critiques power structures where access requires payment. The tactile metaphor (grease = slipperiness, moral stain) evokes disgust. Students should analyze how poets use it to explore inequality—how money oils doors closed to the poor—and how visceral imagery grounds political critique in sensory experience, revealing the grime beneath official surfaces in works about patronage or systemic rot.
Also Known As
Bribe someone Pay off
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