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

Moat

Architecture
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 moat is a deep ditch, often filled with water, surrounding a fortified place. It can symbolize separation, protection, or emotional distance.

Detailed Definition
A moat makes approach difficult by placing water or emptiness between a stronghold and the world outside. Poets can use it to describe isolation chosen for safety but costly in loneliness. The image may surround a house, a kingdom, or a heart that has learned to protect itself after injury. Reflections on its surface can complicate the metaphor, suggesting that defenses also mirror back the face of anyone who comes near.
Example
Example in poetry:
“The moat held a green, unmoving copy of the castle,” using the water-filled defensive ditch as both protection and reflection; A poet may call emotional distance a moat: “Around his heart, a moat of unsent letters”; “Frogs sang in the moat while banners rotted overhead,” contrasting living sound with ruined power; In a poem about isolation, crossing a moat can become an image of risking connection with another person
Additional Notes
A moat separates a fortified site from its surroundings, whether it contains water or is dry. As a metaphor, distinguish protection from isolation: the same defensive boundary can preserve safety while preventing closeness.
Also Known As
Fosse Ditch
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