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.

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 R

Roll with the punches

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 adapt flexibly to difficulties or setbacks without being defeated; boxing metaphor describing absorbing blows by moving with them rather than resisting rigidly, minimizing damage.

Detailed Definition
Roll with the punches means to adapt to difficulties, absorb setbacks, and continue despite pressure or harm. In poetry, the idiom’s boxing origin gives resilience a bodily rhythm: one survives not by avoiding every blow but by moving with impact. It can describe grief, poverty, illness, exile, work, or love. A poet may use it to honour flexibility and endurance, while also asking how many punches a person should be expected to bear. It suits poems about survival without sentimentality.
Example
Example in poetry:
A boxing poem might teach the young fighter to roll with the punches instead of freezing in fear; In a life poem, the speaker rolls with the punches through grief, debt, and rain; The phrase means to adapt to difficulties; A poet can use it for resilience.
Additional Notes
Roll with the punches means adapt to difficulties without being defeated, from boxing. In poetry, it can express resilience, survival, emotional flexibility, or weary pragmatism. The phrase acknowledges impact rather than denying pain: the blows still land, but the body moves with them. Students should compare it with grin and bear it. It suits poems about hardship, ageing, poverty, and the art of continuing without becoming rigid.
Also Known As
adapt
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