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



Grenade

Military
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 grenade is a small explosive device thrown or launched by hand, designed for close-range destruction.

Detailed Definition
The grenade epitomizes the sudden, indiscriminate violence of modern warfare, its brief fuse creating a poetic tension between anticipation and devastating release. Twentieth-century war poets used the grenade to capture the visceral immediacy of trench warfare, where death could arrive in seconds from a small, thrown object. Its explosive unpredictability makes it a potent symbol for the precariousness of a soldier's life in close combat.
Example
Example in poetry:
A poem might describe the tense seconds after a grenade's pin is pulled, anticipation heightening dread; Poets use "grenade" to capture the sudden, visceral immediacy of close-range warfare; A verse could contrast a grenade's small size with its capacity for devastating destruction; The term often appears in trench warfare poetry documenting split-second decisions determining life or death; A poem might depict a soldier's hesitation before throwing a grenade toward an unseen enemy; Historical war poetry sometimes uses grenades to symbolize warfare's unpredictable, explosive precariousness.
Additional Notes
A grenade is a small explosive device thrown or launched by hand, designed for close-range destruction. Grenades can be fragmentation, concussion, smoke, or incendiary, each serving a specific tactical purpose. They are standard infantry weapons, carried in pouches and used in clearing buildings or trenches. In poetry, the grenade represents the sudden, intimate violence of modern war, the weapon that kills without warning. The "pin" and "spoon" of the grenade have become iconic elements. Related terms include hand grenade, rifle grenade, and stun grenade. The act of throwing a grenade, with its short fuse and immediate effect, is a moment of intense action captured in many war narratives.
Also Known As
Hand Bomb Explosive Pineapple Fragmentation Grenade Stun Grenade Pomegranate
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