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.

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


On 5 January in poetry and history

Poets born or who died on this date, plus historical events that happened on this day across history.

610 poets with calendar dates · 6,535 events with calendar dates in the catalogue

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1 birthday · 1 death anniversary · 3 world events on 5 January

Birthdays

Death anniversaries

World events on this day

  • 5 January 1824

    Lord Byron Arrives in Missolonghi to Lead the Greek Forces

    On 24 December 1823 (Old Style) / 5 January 1824 (New Style), Byron arrived at Missolonghi, Greece, where he was warmly received by the Greek leaders and took command of the 'Byron Brigade,' a force of 500 Souliote soldiers, funding the Greek cause with his personal fortune.

    Event 1824

  • 5 January 1976

    Kingsmill Massacre

    On January 5, 1976, the South Armagh Republican Action Force, a republican paramilitary group, stopped a minibus carrying Protestant workers at Kingsmill, County Armagh, and shot dead 10 of them. The Kingsmill massacre was one of the most sectarian attacks of the Troubles, and it was a reprisal for a loyalist attack on Catholics the previous day. The massacre deepened the sectarian divisions of the conflict.

    Event 1976

  • 5 January 1914

    Ford Motor Company Introduces Five-Dollar Day

    Henry Ford doubled assembly-line workers' wages to five dollars daily while reducing hours, aiming to reduce turnover and create consumer base capable of purchasing automobiles. This welfare-capitalist strategy linked productivity gains to worker consumption, anticipating Keynesian demand management decades before theoretical formulation. Fordism redefined industrial relations by treating employees as potential customers rather than mere production inputs.

    Event 1914
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