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 S

skittles

Games
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

Skittles is a game in which players throw or roll a ball to knock down pins or skittles arranged in a formation.

Detailed Definition
Skittles features in poetry as a lively popular pastime representing the toppling of obstacles or figures. In folk and tavern verse it evokes communal merriment and the crash of falling pins. Poets use the game to symbolize the sudden collapse of structures or reputations, linking the throw to moments of disruption and the clearing of the field for new play.
Example
Example in poetry:
Skittles’ standing pins and sudden scatter appear in poems of arranged order and its cheerful ruin; Folk and tavern verse celebrate the crash that follows the well-aimed bowl; “The ball entered and the skittles of the evening fell like a small, satisfied forest” illustrates decisive disruption; Educational examples present the game as a lively ancestor of modern bowling; Poets keep skittles when the upright must be tested by the rolling force of chance or skill.
Additional Notes
Skittles’ standing pins and sudden scatter turn the alley into a theatre of arranged order and cheerful ruin. The game’s older vocabulary preserves a folk energy that modern bowling has partly smoothed away. Teachers may contrast skittles with ninepins and the later ten-pin game for differences in geometry and culture. Related bowling forms include every regional variant of the pin game. The image is effective when the upright must be tested by the rolling force of the ball.
Also Known As
Ninepins Bowling Game Alley Sport
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