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

Issus

Historical Location
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 ancient city in Cilicia, site of Alexander the Great’s victory over Darius III

Detailed Definition
Issus was the location of a decisive battle in 333 BCE where Alexander routed the Persian king. In poetry, it symbolizes the clash of civilizations, the rise of a world-conqueror, and the fragility of vast empires. Poets use Issus to evoke momentous historical turning points—where individual genius topples ancient orders—making it a key reference in heroic or meditative verse on fate and power.
Example
Example in poetry:
Issus; In Arrian, Issus is the battlefield where Alexander defeated Darius, the ground still trembling with the echo of clashing chariots; Issus; A 17th-century epic fragment reads, “Issus—where the earth drank the blood of kings, and the wind carried the names of the fallen”; Issus; In a modern poem, “Issus: the place where two worlds collided—and one rose from the dust”; Issus; A student poem writes: “I walked Issus—and the wind still whispers, ‘Who will be the next to fall?’”; Issus; The poet writes, “Issus is not a battlefield—it is the moment history changed its breath”; Issus; “They call it Issus, but I call it the hinge of empire.”
Additional Notes
Issus, site of Alexander’s victory, is poetically charged with turning points and imperial destiny; its mention signals the moment when East met West in decisive combat, making it ideal for poems on fate, the collapse of empires, or the irony of conquest’s fleeting triumph
Also Known As
Issos
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