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 A

ad kalendas graecas

Latin Phrases
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

At the Greek calends; never, since Greeks had no calends—a humorous way of saying something will never happen.

Detailed Definition
Ad kalendas graecas means "at the Greek calends"—a date that never existed, since the Greek calendar had no calends. This phrase, attributed to Augustus, became a witty way of saying "never" or postponing indefinitely. In poetry, it captures the comedy of evasion, empty promises, and perpetual delay. Poets employ this learned joke to mock procrastination, false hope, or calculated deception. The phrase requires classical education to understand, making it both an in-group signal and a playful scholarly reference. It appears in satirical verse and poems about time, expectation, and disappointment, where the speaker recognizes but perhaps participates in the fiction of eventual fulfillment.
Example
Example in poetry:
A satirical poem about procrastination might promise to finish work "ad kalendas graecas, when Greeks celebrate calends—that is, never"; Political satire employs the phrase to mock empty promises: "The senator will keep his word ad kalendas graecas"; A poem about waiting for an unreliable lover might conclude "He'll return ad kalendas graecas, a date that doesn't exist"; Contemporary verse uses it to describe perpetually delayed reforms: "Justice will arrive ad kalendas graecas, postponed into impossible future"; A humorous poem about New Year's resolutions might promise to exercise "ad kalendas graecas, which suits me perfectly well"; Poets mock their own procrastination by promising to finish the epic "ad kalendas graecas, giving me infinite extension"
Additional Notes
Augustus Caesar coined this phrase when asked when a certain man would repay his debts. Since the Greek calendar had no calends (the first day of the Roman month), the date would never arrive. The joke requires classical education to understand, making it a marker of learned culture. Poets use it as witty evasion or to characterize promises that will never be kept. Related to other ways of saying "never" (when pigs fly, when hell freezes over) but with scholarly panache. Particularly effective in satire about procrastination, empty political promises, or perpetual deferral. The phrase also comments on how power evades accountability through perpetual postponement. Useful for understanding how Latin phrases function as cultural capital and in-group signals among the educated.
Also Known As
to the Greek calends when pigs fly
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