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 L

Looking Glass

Household Objects
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 mirror, especially one in an older domestic setting. It often symbolizes self-knowledge, vanity, memory, or unstable identity.

Detailed Definition
A looking glass is an older term for a mirror, often one framed and hung in a bedroom, hall, or dressing room. Poets use it to explore the uneasy act of seeing oneself, since reflection can confirm, distort, divide, or estrange identity. A dim looking glass may preserve the atmosphere of an old house and its vanished inhabitants. It can also connect appearance with time, showing a face altered by age, grief, desire, or the expectations of those who look.
Example
Example in poetry:
Sylvia Plath’s poem “Mirror” makes the looking glass a speaking observer, showing how an object can reveal self-scrutiny; “In the looking glass, her face drifted like a leaf on dark water” uses reflection to suggest uncertainty about identity; A cracked looking glass can symbolize a fractured self or an unreliable memory; A poet may place a child before a looking glass to explore the moment when self-recognition begins
Additional Notes
A looking glass is an older name for a mirror, so its diction can establish a historical or intimate domestic atmosphere. It may reflect a face imperfectly, invite self-scrutiny, or preserve an image of someone absent. Consider the difference between reflection, appearance, and identity.
Also Known As
Mirror
Skip to main content