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

Move the goalposts

Idiomatic Phrase
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

To change the rules or criteria for success after an effort has already been made, making the goal harder to achieve.

Detailed Definition
From sport, where literally moving goalposts would make scoring unfairly difficult, this idiom describes the dishonest shifting of standards by those in power. In poetry, it appears in political and social verse critiquing institutional bad faith—the bureaucratic trick of changing requirements after compliance, the social habit of raising the bar for those who are already disadvantaged. Poets invoke it to name the frustrating experience of working within rules that change without warning, directed by those who have nothing to lose from their revision. The sporting metaphor democratizes the critique, connecting high-level political injustice to the felt experience of unfair play that anyone who has competed in good faith will recognize.
Example
Example in poetry:
A poem about the experience of disadvantaged groups in social systems might use move the goalposts to name the specific frustration of compliance that is met with redefinition — the criteria for acceptance changed the moment they are met; In a satirical poem about academic credentialism, move the goalposts describes the perpetual shifting of requirements — the degree that was sufficient until it wasn't, the experience that qualifies until it disqualifies, the achievement that impresses until a new standard is established; A political poem about peace negotiations in bad faith might describe one party's constant moving of the goalposts — the agreement nearly reached, then the demands revised, the process extended indefinitely by those who benefit from the absence of resolution; In a poem about a personal relationship where the standards for acceptance kept changing, move the goalposts captures the psychological damage of trying to meet a moving target — the growing certainty that the target was never meant to be met; A poem about workplace discrimination might use move the goalposts to describe the mechanism by which qualified candidates are excluded — the qualifications sufficient until a particular candidate meets them, at which point new qualifications appear; The sporting origin of the phrase democratizes the critique — anyone who has played a game understands immediately what it means to have the rules changed by the opponent in the middle of play
Additional Notes
This phrase criticises unfairness: success criteria change after effort has already been made. In poetry, it suits political, institutional, romantic, or spiritual contexts where the speaker feels judged by shifting rules. The sports-field image gives clear spatial metaphor. Related ideas include rigged games, moving lines, broken promises, and frustration with authority.
Also Known As
Change the rules Shift the goal
Skip to main content