x
we accidentally imagine
by andrew yoon
this is a book of mutable poetry. it exists along a
field of probability with an effectively endless number
of possible realizations. every time this page is opened,
a program generates an entirely new version of the book.
some elements change more often than others. the random
seed for the version you are looking at is 2437669.
because there is a seed number stored in this window's url,
refreshing this page or opening a link to this url
will render the exact same contents you see now.
if you would like to share or keep a link to this version of the book,
you can use this .
if you want to visit or share a random new version of the book,
use this one .
to link to an exact version of a particular poem,
hover over the poem's title area and click the link
which appears that says "fixed link". you will also
see one that says "mutable link" - this points to where
that particular mutable poem lands in a random new book.
try following the mutable links of a particular poem through
different versions and see how it transforms.
you can print or (if your computer has the ability) download a
print-ready pdf of this version of the book using your browser's
printing functionality. some elements of the display will change
to make it more suitable for printing. (you may want to modify your
printing settings to disable the automatic header/footer generation
most browsers do.) please note that as i make
improvements to the mechanics of the program, the content you see
here will likely change, even with a fixed seed - if you want a
truly fixed version, please use the printing method.
the code for this entire project is under the gpl3 license and is
completely free to read, use, and redistribute. the most up-to-date
code is available on github
here .
andrew is a composer, programmer, poet, and bad pianist. you can
find some of his other projects online at his personal website
here .
...
we accidentally imagine
by andrew yoon
seed 2437669
it is 2025. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
we keep asking
questions like “will this make me
happy?” when instead it might be
more interesting to ask what
it would sound like if the
leaves on every
written on little sheets of
paper
world began to read them out
loud all at the same time and
then the wind began to blow
and the poems went flying in
the air all around and
everybody just watched it happen
in complete silence
can't help but smile a little,
and then a lot. and someone
hugs the stranger to their
another question we can't hear
because of all the wind and
poems, and that's
realize we didn't want to know
the answers anyway when
there are so many confusing
and beautiful things
around us anyway. we just keep
laughing and grabbing
of the
deciding to read them and
the wind, the wind is
laughing too.
away the which pushes
bits of dust and wood is so
squirrels cars turn out a clinging
to another falling into
the hugs, paints timer
keeps doing our pretending
not themselves while hear
muffled from the other notice
all the on this of room is a
about
tangling wires into
these bizarre shapes, rugs
with strange colors and
melodies waitingly, taking deep
breaths before the speech where
we finally speak our
minds: "won't everybody
please, please stop this
cruelty? can't we see how
unnecessary it is?"
window creaking under winds,
some oil spilled in a parking
lot.
who's before and after or some
some behind throughingly, a
manual for writers of research
papers about electrical
engineering and game theory,
complex analysis and early
marxist painting; the
walls of this place have
shoulders that are
sagging, somewhere in these
question that matters. a new pair
of jeans, a holiday
decoration left up for months, a
lightbulb which doesn't fit even
though we could have sworn the
size was right at the store.
color combinations making us
feel sick and wonder why we
care about the dissonance,
why we should prefer one to
the other. we conclude that
we're all just bits of air
moving with the waves of some
song we can't hear: now
banging on the wooddrums, the
thoughts and the doubts, hopes or
imaginations throwing fists at the
organ keyboard, some body of
loud waters, some
electrical structure groaning in
rains
the breezings, the sine
waves, the eyeballs thrown
left and right or up and down
or is that a sign of
happiness, of
peacefulness? who's to tell what's
harmony and what's dissonance?
who's to tell the words of the
song when each moment's just
a few bits of data?
see the picture from a
pixel, hard to find the poem
through a word
the arounds and behinds
lost somewhere in the mix,
the breath being exhaled
before we even noticed it was
inside our bodies, each note
rising just a little higher or
just a little more like dirty
wallpaper:
it happened. where the
music got faster. where the
blue became green, where the
light was switched on and the
newer waves began to
interfere with things and distort
the shapes, canceling out
or multiplying or
performing more complicated
operations until the noise is noise
and the signal is noise and
the noise is still noise yet
somehow wider, more sideways
and spinningly and
uppingly and backwardly, more
harsh and out of sync, now neon
colorlines and batteries, strange
gaps in the spiral
patterns but something about
them which makes us feel the
walls are moving further away
and the room is becoming
smaller, that one moment is
another and the second hand is
somehow different this time
around. we cannot help but go to
sleep again, this time with a
strange smile and already
looking forward to coffee. this
time with socks and a thicker
blanket. this time with the
windows open: and in comes the
cooler air.
and just like that, the
page turns for us. the next
series of random numbers fill
the screen and we begin to
imagine dots and we begin to
connect them and agree and
disagree with them, relate to
them and question them and
share them. the page glares.
we glare. everybody is
glaring and nobody is laughing
and then one of us starts
laughing, and another one of us
starts laughing, and we are all
laughing and the paper is
laughing and the inkdots are
laughing: the numbers are
laughing too.
the corner of
grooves in the floorboard, we
smile. the moments going
going in such a beautiful way
that we can't take our eyes
off it, noticing just how
inconsistent things are, how blurry
and arbitrary the
differences seem between things and
people and ideas, how musical a
seems to dry.
it's hard to speak
sometimes. we are frustrated with
ourselves for our
allowing
they are and want to be,
always taking action and never
taking action,
leftandrighting with the
once again wishing things
the
other face; we can't figure
out who we are, and we
quite sure if that question
leads anywhere
the energy to say anything,
too many responses waiting
behind each option which never
seem to go anywhere
positive, anywhere that doesn't
hurt
into
anything actually did or does
happen or if we had somehow just
thought it all up out of some kind
of desperation and
confusion aimed at nothing in
particular, cycles going back and
forth
way,
somehow and adding to the
confusion and
place, the feeling that we are
nowhere and
how did we get here? the
questions which keep making their
way inside our mouths as
we never could learn from
the last
answer and instead only become
throw
some inexpressible anger
screaming
face and bulging veins,
fists again and again against
the door not even caring
what's on the other side, too
caught up with the idea of the
door being there in
place
if causing the lights to
flicker and the stove to begin to
smell like
burning so we all try to remember
what we
kitchen last but
remember, and even the attempts to
remember make us shout with fewer
words, make
fingers and pound
wood is splintering
there and the doorframe
appears to budge this time or
that time or this time again
and again and
which
combination making
vibrations
lean our
the
the second hand
again
the sun
from seasonal allergies. a
bird
recognize. we
at the sound
laughing
against
vibrations buzzing
chests
happen happen these things
happen things
outside our we are
caused each and
and
the smell of
from outside. a slowmoving
sound. we notice how
everything is so pink
don't. “can it stay like this
for a while?”
and ideas, spray paints
and interactions. spray
into the thoughts. the ideas
spray paints the thoughts
again.. spray paints and
concrete,
all just happens we watch
with happens happens
outlines of squares and and
trangles into other each other
and and dominoes which
always seem. not maybe that
could. goals. spray ideas the
thoughts concrete, all these
colors smile. and ideas
permeating. happens, shapes up
behind the up behind each other
the up behind each dominoes
other themselves other
always going wrong intended
intended, be goals again again
interactions. spray colors and ideas
watch with
concrete, all these while
happens
themselves up behind behind each
making things, trangles into
other things and, shapes sort
behind buttons and dominoes
which always seem to dominoes
to fall in the or intended,
could be
we ask ourselves some
question we can't hear, muffled
because our heads are
underwater, this cold sensation
pressing on our foreheads while
we feel our socks becoming
heavy, cottonfibers grabbing
skin and dragging behind our
feet, cold passing between
our toes. maroon painted
walls and a thick sweater,
crinkling plastic bag full of
snacks. we notice it is becoming
later every moment, and that
as soon as we count one
number there is another in
front of that, always room for
another one or zero or eighty
seven or pencilcase
dirtyshoe, these power
rusting over even though we
can't see where the water
could have come from
the carpet telling which
way people walk most
without asking why they walk it
so often when it seems
there are so, so many other
ways to go and that this way
isn't even the easiest or most
efficient or beautiful or
surprising: they are taking the path
because it is the path they take,
and we can't help but
laughalittle at how beautiful that is
not to say that one is better
than another or that anyone
is wrong for going the way
they do or that we think we are
better than going that
particular way to the couch, but
that we know in the end we are
going to go that way too and
that's just fine. it's just as
good an option as any so we
don't see a reason why not
beautiful enough and it's
surprising enough
may be the most beautiful
and surprising thing of all
at the moment.
are so quiet, a tiny hiss
from the walls,
clanging of a ventilation fan. we
breathe with
and
toes even though
quite tell why
chooses
against the window, why one
another, why every story
sort of climax where
elements and trajectories
as if
there
were some
behind
where this leaf decides
fall in
from
strange sense
the bottom of our right foot
now the ventilation fan
banging; we notice a
the ground
out which
do we care? is it
care? would it matter if we
knew? we are staring at the
coin and the coin
back.
anything actually ever
really changes and we ask
ourselves an question in. begin
then cry laugh to. and cry to
cry. and begin to laugh, to
we begin to, laugh, and
laugh and cry. then we. see we
can't why these every minute
like every second a when it
are so aimless in the first
or every minute or second
comes to our so, is like why we
can't think of question to the
moment or how we read. we, and we
laugh laugh changed years the
idea that ourselves an
unexpected ?” know. don't we begin
to
marbles in
not
tinkling or
so loudly
flickerings or
water.
asking between colorshades
or something or something
thismomentingly
casting
reflects
walls and the nearby
surface,
months before piled over each
other, some important some not
so
paintings
from an
laser
that
meaning.
eyelids, and
underthere, a beforemaroon, the
again how inside it
things things moving so slowly
seems as
clunks
conversation stays the and nobody the
wayingsong. the eyelids, the
eyelids behind the
things all moving so slowly be
usual with those clunks and
with little
. seems to care about
wayingsong we or
eyes beforemaroon, the eyes
again with questions eyes and
clunks and little
because the longer we
stare at the details, the less
we are
matter.
they listened things as
about and about scheduling
writing without any
sense begin with, across
lines on pen
one
can't laugh
things like
happening of
might two things happening
same sound like if someone
were
is as
worrying so
(not worrying
things that make to have
to make sense that sense be
that consistency that
consistency mean allowing to happen
actions and actions our own
difference between so
things which don't which don't
things even mean away could
even mean things to don't
make
our own actions and the
temperature outside difference our
minds or untied tied our a
trashbag somewhere eaten by food
being eaten we
over the this is and is a
beautiful thing completely if we
let be let
on cue
coming back
remember
lines still glowing somehow
becoming and somehow somehow
breathe we! isn't how cue
cue when the but smile when
the we help but smile can't
the right on cue cue shades
of
names remember
remember names we can't remember
of incense incense the the
stick of incense is still
we accidentally
imagine ourselves as having for
a
shaped box or a bird feeder
something similar and we are
sitting in the front passenger
seat of an old car and
we care a lot about asks,
who are you?
another. we aren't able to answer
with anything except a held
hand, and we somehow find
ourselves caring more about
just because they asked.
they can't answer either,
and the grip gets tighter
and they aren't making eye
contact but that's okay because
we aren't looking anyway
strange wooden boxes attached
to bodies, heads without
eyes which still say so much,
eyes without
which always find new things
to smile
behind our ears, the way this
piece of paper falls on the
ground, the sound of an overhead
lamp switching on
about nothing in particular
and everything in
particular, wanting to
everything and wanting to want
nothing, to feel everything and
to feel nothing, or at
least something
getting tighter and
how okay it is, how
beautiful it is and how funny it is
that poetry and music might
be the same thing after
all, that hiding is okay
sometimes and being naked is okay
too, that sometimes things
lead to other things,
sometimes they don't, and
sometimes things just happen
they keep just happening and
they don't stop. they don't
stop and it seems like
making sense to just accept
this and close our eyes and
smile a little but somehow
this feels impossible. we
get frustrated and start to
do things we don't want to
do, blaming other people
for things nobody
control over in the
and jumping to conclusions
and making assumptions
about other people and their
intentions and what they want or
what
forget that they are us, that
their grip is
and that nothing is okay for
them either. we
that their boxy head is
crying and we have been trying
not to notice. we remember
that we
person born into different
bodies, and that this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing.
we are of
there
, a different different
struggle behind behind
there isn't seeming.
keep arriving to be from out
possibilities
we go good as first and
seems
mistakes
aren't listening
best do our pretend
listening
repetition faster little more
every do our conversation
going on we heated do our best
to our repetition getting
a little repetition
faster and with fewer mistakes
.
conversation going and little
accurate, faster
accurate, a little faster little
aren't getting we. every
repetition getting
listening do our best to heated
while we heated aren't
listening pretend we to aren't
heated
accurate, a little, a accurate.
every
little more accurate
little more accurate
we are breathing. and we
are still breathing. one
thought and another passing by
in the street while we ask
ourselves if this is going
anywhere
focusing on something else like
the way the smoke is
drifting away from the incense
stick, or the sound our eyelids
make when we blink. is there a
place for rushing anymore?
the softmurmurs again,
reminding us about our breath: and
a little blue bird lands
on the windowsill. it is
singing.
and
happens that we go that
from one to the other go from
from and
sometimes
and
sometimes it happens sometimes it
sometimes they to the other
without without things
, we sometimes sometimes
things happens
sometimes. and sometimes not okay
that we go from one to without
even trying. and sometimes
sometimes they are are okay and
sometimes things not okay, and it
happens
they are, from one to the
without. and sometimes are, we
go from one to, and that
sometimes things happens that we
one to sometimes okay, and
that
and sometimes things okay,
sometimes things
sometimes they they that from the
trying. and sometimes things,
and sometimes it other
without sometimes sometimes
sometimes they are
trying
without even. sometimes
are okay, and sometimes and
without even. and and and
sometimes it go that go
sometimes
are
okay it happens that that we
happens the and
sometimes the other without even
to other not and from not
it happens that to to and
sometimes
sometimes to
and
systems all around us
and our lives fracturing
breaking apart piece by piece as
we keep trying to glue
things back together with
words and theories and poems
and cathedrals
architectures in the
in concrete, we begin to
feel jittery as we realize we
haven't stood up in hours, this
chair and its arms a little too
narrow, pressing against the
sides of our skulls, plurals
and singulars not having so
much significance to us now
when the lights are
flickering so subtly. we pray
don't know who we are praying
to
what we want, what we should
want. fading. fading.
but sticks our
somehow to the paper and well
make might make us somehow
misread
or note think
anything
legs
come
couldn't it, these
as
little going events
little
could leaves
up look at the branches
know comes walking
sitting so us up place we
they
ourselves.
matter
and we notice
behind in of us looks
ink
paper it all
misread
wonder wonder if anything
could or
and if it
we've never laughter and
destination they
these
back sort of
and wonder
okay for us to
this
watch
around through the
take another breath with
sunlight and feel warmer.
throughs and arounds
behindingly the now
again the time continues and
stops and continues
circles of ink
the changes until they've
already happened. or at least
they are
happening. we wonder why that is:
the
the sun coming
getting so slightly warmer; a
single row of
different color.
through before how's
againagain the words
as we notice a
cottonfluff drifting toward us. it
sticks to our ink, and
again where meaning comes
from. a
thrown every
of possibility
terrifyingly wide staring us in the
look away
little bug just flying around,
landing, and flying around
again. flying, landing, and
flying around again.
silence and quiet now. a
small voice humming and
laughing in the other room. a
crystal or some melting snow.
behinds toward while
around where's or why's while
leftandright shrinking
wooden creak. a scratch.
centers
around, things just happening
and just being the
are. and we realize that this
is a beautiful
this is a beautiful thing.
make us happy, what would
make
which keeps distracting
from everything going on
scratching pens and observations,
when
though we know it's a fire
danger
other people living above
even though
them
so quiet.
quietingly, the
softmurmurs not trying to say
convince anyone of anything,
prefering to let things just exist
the way
same when they need to stay
the same and change when
they need to change, or not
even need
need to change but maybe
instead want to stay the same or
want
just happens. it just
happens, and it keeps just
happening. the softmurmers not
even speaking about what's
going on or what's not going on
but instead just
mentioning about whatever is on
their mind at that moment,
letting it out and letting it go,
the sound waves not
disappearing but echoing off a
thousand surfaces and every
blade of grass, split and
muffled and distorted and
echoed until they sound like
dead trees,
the waves around a little
in the air just sort of
moving around.