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 M

Missile

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 missile is a self-propelled guided weapon designed to deliver explosive payloads over long distances.

Detailed Definition
The missile epitomizes the terrifying technological escalation of modern warfare, capable of delivering devastating destruction across vast distances with impersonal precision. Poets writing in the nuclear and Cold War eras used missile imagery to capture existential anxieties about humanity's capacity for self-annihilation, the missile symbolizing both technological achievement and the horrifying potential for instantaneous, large-scale destruction that distinguishes contemporary warfare from all previous historical eras.
Example
Example in poetry:
Cold War era poetry often used missile imagery to capture existential anxiety about mutual annihilation; A poem might describe a missile's silent, waiting presence as a constant undercurrent of dread; Poets use "missile" to evoke technological escalation and warfare's capacity for instantaneous mass destruction; A verse could contrast the missile's impersonal precision with the immense human cost of its use; The term appears in poetry reflecting on humanity's unprecedented capacity for self-annihilation; Historical poetry sometimes uses missiles to symbolize the terrifying scale of modern warfare's reach.
Additional Notes
A missile is a self-propelled guided weapon designed to deliver explosive payloads over long distances. Missiles can be ballistic, cruise, surface-to-air, or anti-ship, representing the pinnacle of modern weaponry. They offer accuracy and range, making them key to strategic and tactical operations. In poetry, the missile symbolizes the depersonalized nature of modern war, the weapon that kills at the push of a button. Related terms include rocket, projectile, and munition. The arms race, particularly during the Cold War, focused on missile technology, making the image of a missile launch a powerful symbol of potential destruction. The term also appears in "intercontinental ballistic missile," emphasizing global reach.
Also Known As
Rocket Projectile Guided Weapon Ballistic Missile Ordnance
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