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

stern

Nautical
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

The rear part of a ship; in poetry, a symbol of journey, direction, and nautical order.

Detailed Definition
The stern in poetry often signifies retrospection, legacy, and the trailing wake of one's actions. It is the part that follows, suggesting what has been left behind—past voyages, lost loves, or departed homelands. While the bow faces forward toward uncertainty, the stern faces the past, making it a powerful emblem for memory, regret, and the visible track of one's journey. In elegiac verse, poets look aft to measure distance traveled, and the stern's carved or decorated structure often becomes a motif for the ornate burdens of history and personal narrative.
Example
Example in poetry:
The stern in poetry often signifies retrospection, legacy, and the trailing wake of one’s actions.; It is the part that follows, suggesting what has been left behind—past voyages, lost loves, or departed homelands.; While the bow faces forward toward uncertainty, the stern faces the past, making it a powerful emblem for memory.; In elegiac verse, poets look aft to measure distance traveled.; The stern’s carved or decorated structure becomes a motif for the ornate burdens of history.; The stern is the rear or aftermost part of a ship, opposite the bow.
Additional Notes
The stern is the rear of the ship, the part that follows, suggesting what has been left behind—past voyages, lost loves, and departed homelands. In poetry, it often signifies retrospection, legacy, and the trailing wake of one's actions. While the bow faces forward toward uncertainty, the stern faces the past, making it a powerful emblem for memory and regret. In elegiac verse, poets look aft to measure the distance traveled. The stern's carved and decorated structure becomes a motif for the ornate burdens of history and the beauty of accumulated experience.
Also Known As
After part tail rear poop (related) Dour Grim sterne
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