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 P

Physical World

Metaphysics
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

The tangible, material realm governed by sensory experience and natural laws, often contrasted with spiritual or abstract dimensions in poetry.

Detailed Definition
Metaphysical poets use the physical world as both grounding and foil—employing concrete images (compasses, fleas, tears) to symbolize intangible ideas. This tension highlights the limitations of bodily existence while seeking traces of the divine or eternal within the material, revealing how spirit manifests through matter.
Example
Example in poetry:
John Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn” contrasts the physical world’s transience with art’s permanence; Emily Dickinson’s “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain” uses physical sensations (drumming, numbness) to convey mental collapse; Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” celebrates the physical body and sensory experience as sacred; Robert Frost’s “Birches” grounds metaphysical longing in the tactile reality of climbing trees; Sylvia Plath’s “Tulips” contrasts the sterile hospital room (physical world) with the speaker’s desire for oblivion; T.S. Eliot’s “Prufrock” uses urban imagery (yellow fog, coffee spoons) to depict alienation in the modern physical world.
Additional Notes
Physical World in metaphysics is often contrasted with—or seen as a reflection of—the spiritual or divine realm; metaphysical poets do not reject the material but interrogate its significance—Donne’s compasses, tears, or fleas become conduits for exploring love, grace, or unity, illustrating how the physical world, however mundane, can be charged with metaphysical meaning when viewed through the lens of analogical imagination and theological wonder.
Also Known As
Material World Sensible Realm Corporeal Realm Phenomenal World
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