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 I

Idol

World Religion
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

An image or statue worshipped as a god; in Abrahamic faiths, a false god or any object of devotion that is not the one true God.

Detailed Definition
Idolatry is the worship of a created thing instead of the creator. In poetry, the "idol" can be a literal statue or a metaphor for anything that takes the place of God in the human heart—money, power, fame, or even a beloved person. The poet may condemn idolatry or explore its seductive power. The breaking of idols is a common theme in mystical poetry, representing the necessary destruction of all false concepts of God to make way for the true, formless reality.
Example
Example in poetry:
In biblical poetry, Idol is false god: “They made a calf of gold—forgot the living God”; In Hindu apologetic verse, murtis are not Idols but focal points: “Clay becomes Krishna—not Idol, but invitation”; In modern critique, Idol is consumerism: “Shopping malls—our new Idols, promising salvation”; Poets warn against subtle Idols: “Your phone—Idol of distraction, stealing your soul’s attention.”
Additional Notes
Idolatry is condemned in Abrahamic faiths as misplacing ultimate devotion (on wealth, power, or images); yet in Hinduism, murtis are honored as divine manifestations; poets navigate this tension—using “idol” critically (Blake’s “mind-forg’d manacles”) or devotionally (Tagore’s worship of the form as path to formless).
Also Known As
Graven Image Murti (in Hindu context) Murti
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