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



Minamoto no Yoshitsune

Historical Figure
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

Japanese warrior of the late Heian period, celebrated as a tragic hero of loyalty, brilliance, and betrayal.

Detailed Definition
Minamoto no Yoshitsune is a favourite figure of Japanese legend, drama, and poetry because his military genius was followed by persecution and death. His story combines youth, courage, exile, brotherly conflict, and doomed nobility. Poets use him to evoke the pathos of the fallen hero, the beauty of loyalty unrewarded, and the sadness of glory extinguished too soon.
Example
Example in poetry:
A poet might use Minamoto no Yoshitsune to evoke youthful brilliance, loyalty, and tragic betrayal; His flight and death can symbolise the doomed hero pursued by politics; A poem might place Yoshitsune on a bridge or battlefield as a figure of elegance and danger; His name may bring in cherry blossom, armour, flutes, and samurai legend
Additional Notes
Minamoto no Yoshitsune is one of the great tragic heroes of Japanese tradition: brilliant, loyal, victorious, and betrayed. Poets may invoke him to explore the pathos of the young warrior, the beauty of doomed skill, or the loneliness of loyalty unrewarded. Related ideas include the Genpei War, Benkei, flight, brotherly rivalry, and the Japanese taste for heroic impermanence.
Also Known As
Yoshitsune Minamoto Yoshitsune Ushiwakamaru Kurō Yoshitsune
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