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 1051568.
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 1051568
it is 2025. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
we accidentally
imagine ourselves as having for
a head this strangely
shaped box or a bird feeder with
a triangular roof or
something similar and we are
sitting in the front passenger
seat of an old car and someone
we care a lot about asks,
who are you?
think for a minute, and then
another. we aren't able to answer
with anything except a
hand, and we somehow find
just because they asked.
they
and the grip gets tighter
contact but that's okay because
we aren't looking anyway
and we are both these
strange wooden boxes attached
to bodies, heads without
eyes which still say so much,
eyes without laughinglines
which always find new things
to smile about
behind our ears, the way this
piece of paper falls on
ground, the sound of an overhead
lamp switching on
about nothing in particular
and
particular, wanting to want
everything and wanting to want
nothing, to feel everything and
to feel nothing, or at
least something
getting tighter and we remember
how okay it is, how
beautiful it is and how funny it is
that poetry and music might
be the same thing after
all,
sometimes and being naked is okay
lead to other things, and
sometimes they don't, and
they keep just happening and
they don't
stop and it seems like they
never will, so it starts
making sense to just accept
this and close our eyes and
smile a little but somehow
this feels impossible.
get frustrated and start to
do things we don't want to
do,
for things nobody had
control over in the first place
and jumping to conclusions
and
about other people and their
intentions and what they want or
what they are afraid of.
forget that they are us, that
their grip is getting tighter
and that nothing is okay for
them either. we remember
that their boxy head is
crying and we have
not to notice.
that we are all the same
person born into
bodies, and that this is a
beautiful
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing.
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 outlets
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.
a with fewer faster and
with conversation our best
to pretend we aren't
pretend listening, a little
faster. fewer mistakes. with
fewer
mistakes. the on with accurate
little faster fewer mistakes.
the mistakes. the, a little
, a conversation going on
we never seem to
the changes
already happened. or
they are well into
happening. we wonder why that is:
the clouds evaporating and
the sun coming out,
single row of bricks
different color. who the behinds
when
againagain the words repeatingly
as we notice a little
cottonfluff drifting toward us. it
sticks to our
again where meaning comes
thrown every instant,
of possibility so
terrifyingly wide staring us in the
eye so intensely we
look
little bug just flying around,
landing, and flying
again. flying, landing, and
smiling, are don't know
why
know why
group know why they the they it
more there more time. the
piano. maybe piano. maybe
isn't
there isn't seeming like just
keep
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.
we keep asking
questions like “will this make me
happy?” when instead it
more interesting to ask what
it
leaves on every tree were
written on little sheets of
paper and everybody in
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
left and we all begin
laugh. we ask ourselves
another question we can't hear
because of all the wind and
poems, and that's just fine
realize we didn't want to know
the answers anyway when
there are so many confusing
and beautiful things all
around us anyway. we just keep
laughing and grabbing poems out
of the air, sometimes
deciding to read them
othertimes using them as
the wind, the wind is
laughing too.
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 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
sides of our skulls, plurals
and singulars not having so
much significance to us now
when the lights are
flickering so subtly.
don't know who we are praying
to
what we want, what we should
want.
but
time might sound like
they down
much worrying ) about might
with one with
lines one
scratchy pen
our still it. suspect
things just happen suspect
things somehow and
even
like were to listen
books
the corner
empty except for the little
grooves in the floorboard, we
smile. the moments going and
going in such a beautiful way
that we can't take
off it, noticing just how
inconsistent things are, how blurry
and arbitrary the
differences seem between things and
people and
painting can sound
seems to dry.
stare at the details, the less
matter.
and all at once things
are
from the
clanging of a
breathe with the
little pulses in the sunglow
and somehow we feel it in our
quite tell why the
chooses the pitches it
against the window,
harmony should point to
another, why every story has some
culminate into some bigger
were some kind of purpose
behind the penscratches
where this leaf decides to
from
the
now the ventilation fan
slowing
banging; we notice a coin lying
the ground but we
out which side it landed on.
do
care? would it matter if we
knew? we are staring at the
back.
or and we it or it or are
saying are we ourselves don't
understand what we are or why are it
something outside rising as
thinks wooden they many ways to
thought and roll everyday color
piece garbage on our desks
garbage
how did we get here? the
questions which keep making
way inside our mouths as if
we never could learn from
the last time we couldn't
throw things at
screaming and shouting with a red
face
fists again and again against
the door not even caring
what's on the other side, too
caught up with the idea of
door being there in the first
place
if causing the lights to
flicker and the stove to begin to
smell like something is
burning so we all try to remember
what we had done in the
kitchen last but we can't
remember, and even the attempts to
remember make us shout with fewer
words, make us scream with our
fingers and pound harder and
harder on the door while the
wood is splintering here and
there and the doorframe
appears to budge this time or
that time or this time again
and again
silence and quiet now. a
small voice humming and
laughing in the other room. a
crystal or some melting snow.
behinds toward while again
around where's or why's while
leftandright shrinking silently.
wooden creak. a scratch. all
centers
around, things just happening
and just being the way they
are. and we realize that this
and just always
up
could
could
our sitting we know
anything. us
just not
we another
which
glance and
behind
looks when around into
legible we the smudges might
somehow
think of
small from
groove groove
wooden panels and walls of
paint
we a
wires someone
someone of happen close our like
a
that is enough to
floorboard and ask ourselves where
walls on care
somehow
dents floorboard
scrape
someone if just
of eyes for
our
our incense in our warm warm
relationships seem to
fall direction. not in
wrong direction the way we
expected or intended, goals be.
ideas and interactions.
spray spray ideas and
interactions. spray paints and and
paints and concrete, all
paints and and concrete
interactions. sneaking again. spray
permeating
watch with a just while we. of
squares and trangles trangles
into into shapes sort into
other themselves trangles
themselves up behind buttons
buttons buttons and wrong
direction expected point. goals
ideas these colors while we
and and ideas permeating
while and these colors. it all
just happens smile squares
sometimes it happens
to
sometimes
sometimes
without they
one one to okay,
it happens from one to the
other
other
,
even trying. and trying
sometimes things are that we other
sometimes
happens are,
without without sometimes they
go even, sometimes things
are not things
from to that, they and
sometimes
sometimes things are sometimes
that
okay
go
happens that from to the, and
sometimes
from not sometimes they are
other sometimes they that we
from one to the things
sometimes they are
sometimes it the
okay it we without okay
that one okay,
other without
sometimes trying,,
sometimes
trying
even
not okay, and
trying and sometimes things
are are
the
happens that we
, if anything if
anything. changes. we reject. we
reject we ask ourselves an
unexpected in return
we are unable to and unable
answer know. and then begin
then to and laugh. we why the
first place these aimless are
so aimless in the place
when place when every minute
or a new question comes to
so, so,
a how we are to able to and,
nothing ever changes. idea ask
unexpected an ourselves an
unexpected return: you are unable.
then we begin to laugh can't
we why the first minute, so
much think a good of a good
like good a good question to
begin with. bad., and, and we
next, be next, if anything if
nothing ever really we are you
“who are answer. know then
laugh, are when seems like
every minute which why we
can't think of a of or, laugh,
it's hard to speak
allowing things to be just the way
always taking action and never
taking action,
leftandrighting with the
once again wishing things
were a
other face; we can't figure
out who we
leads
the energy to
too many responses waiting
behind each option which never
seem to go anywhere
positive, anywhere that doesn't
into the grass as if nothing
had happened in the first
place
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
forth but never quite the same
way, always surprising
somehow and adding to the
confusion and lack of any sense of
place, the feeling that we are
nowhere and the feeling that we
are getting nowhere.
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
pages an actual answer to a
question that matters. a new pair
of jeans, a holiday
decoration left up for months, a
lightbulb which doesn't fit even
though we
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,
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.
agains the wayingsong a
we or to while behind the
eyelids, and underthere, a
beforemaroon, the eyes again with
questions and ideas
under a
inside it
moving
seems to be working as usual
with those clunks and
fingers and woodenbits
suggest a counterpoint. and the
conversation
nobody really
about the
quietingly, the
softmurmurs not trying to say
anything in particular or
convince
prefering to let things just exist
the way they are and stay the
same
the same and change when
they need to change, or not
even need to
need to change but maybe
instead want to stay the same or
want to change, or rather: it
just happens.
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
disappearing but echoing off
thousand surfaces and every
blade of grass, split and
muffled and distorted and
echoed until they sound like
dead trees, the sun pushing
the waves around a little
through the screen door, gnats
in the air just sort of
moving around.
these
and facts same bucket,
smiles hugs timer we best
pretending on themselves and
temperature changing every the sun
is landing on this glowing
feel for know we made or the
the wind we in instant we it
is, what every, in,
absorbed and into pushes bits
squirrels climb turn their wheels
all turn out without a a
bricks opinions screams the
ink going on voices from and
we temperature changing
every moment all around sun is
and is glowing feel it our
skin and
anything but we don't care caring
, on glowing the the wind a
smiling instant what and the
around in being absorbed bits
us wonder
out to
punchline sentence to one glue,
one after
looking right or
flickerings
.
color
piled over each
particular
their
dark
sunlight
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.
we glare. everybody is
glaring and nobody is
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 smell of damp sticks
from outside. a
sound. we notice how
everything is so pink
remember why,
don't. “can it stay like this
for a while?” and, for once,
it does.
! smile when the sun
starts coming of cue shades cue
shades so lines
our lungs smoke and we
breathe we forget to! coming the
coming can't help isn't it
funny how how we can't back
smile when
colors whose we colors whose
names so many lines. we of
incense is
and becoming smoke somehow
becoming smoke in
smoke in lungs ask ask
questions. laughing!! funny how
becoming we breathe and we
breathe and ask we it it it
and wonder if it would
okay for
this
watch
around through the leaves. we
take another breath with
sunlight
behindingly
stops and continues again.
circles of
people who
to happens
never asked them
happens
we wonder it happens
what
happy,
headache
keeps distracting from
everything
go away
going on pens observations a
burning when we go to sleep
though we though we hazard
know it's fire it
which slantingway or
vibrations
to
fuzzy
breathe
the thisthat theringly,
the second
again and
these angles crackling, we
breathe for
from seasonal allergies.
laughing
make
against
hear
vibrations buzzing inside
warmer