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 C

Chaos

Mythology
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

In Greek cosmogony, the primordial void or abyss that existed before creation, from which Gaia, Tartarus, and Eros first emerged.

Detailed Definition
Chaos is the original void or abyss in Greek cosmogony, the formless state preceding creation from which Gaia, Tartarus, Eros, and other primordial beings arose. In Hesiod’s Theogony, Chaos is the first entity to exist, embodying both emptiness and potential. Poets invoke Chaos to represent disorder, the unknown, or the generative power of nothingness—often contrasting it with cosmic order (cosmos) to explore themes of creation, existential uncertainty, and the origins of being.
Example
Example in poetry:
Hesiod begins the Theogony: “First Chaos came into being”; Milton’s Paradise Lost opens with “chaos and old night”; Pope’s “Essay on Man” describes Chaos as “great nature’s second spring”; Shelley’s “Mont Blanc” speaks of “the everlasting universe of things / Flowing through Chaos”; In “The Waste Land,” Eliot evokes “fear in a handful of dust” amid modern chaos; Chaos in poetry often symbolizes formless potential before creation or societal collapse.
Additional Notes
Chaos in classical cosmology refers not to disorder but to the primordial void or gap from which all existence emerged; in Hesiod’s Theogony, Chaos is the first entity, giving birth to Gaia, Tartarus, and Eros; Roman poets like Ovid (Metamorphoses I) adapt this as a formless mass later shaped by divine will; in poetry, Chaos can symbolize pre-creation, existential uncertainty, or revolutionary upheaval; students should distinguish mythological Chaos from modern “chaos theory” or colloquial usage; it often contrasts with Cosmos (order); useful in creation narratives or apocalyptic imagery.
Also Known As
Primordial Void Formless Abyss Original Gap Cosmic Chaos bedlam Turmoil
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