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 P

Play ball

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 cooperate or agree to participate in an activity; originates from baseball terminology, suggesting willingness to engage fairly and follow established rules or expectations.

Detailed Definition
Play ball means to cooperate, participate, follow the rules, or engage in a shared enterprise. In poetry, the idiom can characterise social conformity, negotiation, childhood games, politics, labour, or reluctant compromise. Its sporting origin suggests that life has rules, teams, and expected conduct, but also winners and losers. A poet may use it approvingly for fellowship, or critically when “playing ball” means submitting to unjust power. It is useful for examining participation, pressure, and the cost of refusal.
Example
Example in poetry:
A sports poem might praise the stubborn captain who finally agrees to play ball; In satire, a minister refuses to play ball with justice until the crowd grows loud; The phrase means to cooperate; A poet can use it for teamwork, politics, or reluctant compromise.
Additional Notes
Play ball means cooperate, follow agreed rules, or participate in a shared enterprise. In poetry, it can reveal conformity, social pressure, teamwork, negotiation, or refusal. The sporting metaphor implies that life has a game, players, rules, and expected conduct. Students should ask whether cooperation is fair-minded or coerced. The phrase suits poems about institutions, politics, childhood games, and the cost of not joining in.
Also Known As
cooperate
Skip to main content