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



Strix Owl

Folklore
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

A Roman vampiric bird-woman who devours flesh, omen of death, evolving to witch familiars in medieval lore.

Detailed Definition
The Strix, from Ovid's tales, shape-shifts to screech nightly, symbolizing nocturnal horror. Literature owls it in Harry Potter. In poetry, it hoots Pliny's bestiary echoes; poets devour for predation motifs, appearing in gothic verses as winged hunger, where talons rake night's veil, enriching classical horror with avian terror.
Example
Example in poetry:
Ovid's "Metamorphoses" transforms women to Strix Owl vampires; In Roman satire, Strix screeches ill omens; A nocturnal ode heeds Strix's wings; Folklore's witch-bird educates on curses; Gothic verse adapts Strix for blood hunger; Medieval bestiaries teach its head-turning gaze.
Additional Notes
Strix Owl, Strigoi-Roman blood-drinker, screech omens; Ovid's bird-women; tips: flesh devouring for vampirism; related: lilith or barn owl witch; medieval context: nocturnal curses, for horror motifs.
Also Known As
Strix Striges Striga Strigoi Shtriga Strzyga
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