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 S

Shortened rhyme

Rhyme
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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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

Shortened rhyme pairs words where one or both are truncated (e.g., “photo”/“auto”), creating informal, modern, or playful sonic connections.

Detailed Definition
Shortened rhyme is a type of rhyme achieved by using abbreviated or truncated word forms—such as “ad” for “advertisement” rhyming with “glad,” or “photo” with “potato”—to create sonic correspondence where standard forms would not align. Common in informal verse, song lyrics, and dialect poetry, it prioritizes spoken rhythm and colloquial authenticity over orthographic precision. While it can add freshness or humor, shortened rhyme risks sounding forced if pronunciation doesn’t naturally support the match. It is closely related to clipped rhyme but emphasizes abbreviation rather than syllabic truncation, and is best suited to conversational or satirical registers where linguistic playfulness enhances thematic expression.
Example
Example in poetry:
Shortened rhyme|rhyme|In Christina Rossetti’s “Song,” “rest” and “breast” form a shortened rhyme through shared consonant closure and truncated vowel; The nursery rhyme “Hickory Dickory Dock” uses “clock” and “dock” as monosyllabic shortened rhymes for rhythmic clarity; Langston Hughes’s “Dreams” pairs “go” and “snow” with shortened vowel sounds to emphasize fragility; Robert Burns’s Scots dialect yields shortened rhymes like “luve” and “dove” in “A Red, Red Rose,” compressing pronunciation; In Gwendolyn Brooks’s “We Real Cool,” the internal shortened rhyme of “sin” and “gin” tightens the poem’s cadence; Dylan Thomas’s “Do not go gentle into that good night” uses “rage” and “age” as shortened rhymes through assonance and clipped diphthongs.
Additional Notes
Shortened rhyme uses abbreviated words to create rhyme (“ad” / “glad”). Common in informal verse and song lyrics. Students should consider register—can feel fresh or sloppy. Ensure pronunciation supports the rhyme; avoid forcing it at the cost of meaning.
Also Known As
clipped end-echo abbreviated terminal match contracted rhyming pair abbreviated rhyme
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