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 T

Tough nut to crack

Idiomatic Phrase
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

An idiom describing a difficult problem to solve or a stubborn person to understand, using the metaphor of cracking a hard nut to signify complexity and resistance to resolution.

Detailed Definition
Tough nut to crack means a difficult problem, person, mystery, or challenge that resists easy understanding or solution. In poetry, the idiom can describe guarded characters, complex texts, riddles, stubborn grief, political problems, or moral dilemmas. The nut image suggests a hard shell protecting something hidden inside. A poet may use it to explore resistance, patience, and the labour of interpretation. It is especially apt for poetry itself, where meaning may require pressure, skill, and care before it opens.
Example
Example in poetry:
A mystery poem might call the locked-room case a tough nut to crack; In a love poem, the proud beloved becomes a tough nut to crack because sorrow guards the heart; The phrase means a difficult problem or person to understand; A poet can use it for challenge.
Additional Notes
A tough nut to crack is a difficult problem, secret, or person to understand or overcome. The idiom is tactile and practical: value may be inside, but the shell resists. In poetry, it suits riddles, guarded hearts, hard cases, mysteries, and resistant texts. Students should ask whether cracking is discovery or violation. It pairs well with shells, teeth, hammers, winter stores, and the patience needed to reach hidden meaning.
Also Known As
difficult
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