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

primero

Games
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

Primero is an early European card game of the Renaissance, involving betting on combinations and bluffing.

Detailed Definition
Primero appears in poetry as a symbol of courtly gambling and the art of deception. In Shakespeare and contemporary works it evokes the high stakes of social play. Poets use its terms and risks to explore themes of bravado, the reading of opponents, and the sudden elevation or ruin that accompanies the turn of cards in the game of status and desire.
Example
Example in poetry:
Primero’s early bluffs and high stakes appear in poems of Renaissance risk and display; Historical verse places the game among the dangerous pastimes of the court; “He vied the primero and the fortune of the evening changed hands” illustrates bold declaration; Educational examples present the sport as an ancestor of later vying games; Poets invoke primero when the claim must be made before the cards are fully known.
Additional Notes
Primero’s early bluffs and high combinations made it a Renaissance emblem of risk and display. The game’s period flavor allows poets to evoke the court or the tavern of the sixteenth century. Instructors may place primero among the ancestors of later vying games. Related forms include the various national variants of the early poker family. The image rewards attention to the moment when the claim is made before the cards are fully known.
Also Known As
First Primary Initial Verse
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