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

straws

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

Straws are short pieces of straw or similar objects used in drawing lots, particularly in the game of drawing the short straw.

Detailed Definition
Straws enter poetry as humble instruments of chance and the simple tools of decision. In folk and literary verse they represent the ordinary means of determining fate. Poets use the straws to illustrate themes of modest risk, the equality of the draw, and the cultural practice of using everyday objects to settle questions of duty or misfortune.
Example
Example in poetry:
Straws drawn from the fist appear in poems of simple and impartial selection; Folk and modern verse use the unequal lengths for the moment when chance assigns the harder portion; “They drew the straws of the evening and the shortest became a form of fate” illustrates accepted misfortune; Educational examples present the practice as the most democratic of lotteries; Poets invoke the straws when the decision must feel both fair and irreversible.
Additional Notes
Straws, as the short pieces used in the drawing of lots, root the poetry of chance assignment in one of the simplest and most democratic of materials. The image of the fist or the bundle allows poets to stage the moment of selection with tactile clarity. Teachers may explore the ethics of the draw and the acceptance that follows. Related practices include the short straw and the various forms of the unequal lot. The image works best when the outcome must feel both ordinary and final.
Also Known As
chance sticks random picks selection straws
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