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 1943714.
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 1943714
it is 2025. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
silence and quiet now. a
small voice humming and
laughing in the other room. a
crystal or
behinds toward while again
leftandright shrinking silently. a
wooden creak. a scratch. all
around, things just happening
and just being the way they
are. and we realize that this
is a beautiful thing. that
care because have made
like sun is our blood keeps
pushing trees a bit in an instant
what it object is doing, sort
these the being pushes makes
quickly and how wonder if turn
falling into screams the, the
the
voices and temperature all
this glowing it we anything
we don't if things not but
we don't care and have more
sun our and glowing through
our skin going pushing
trees around we keep instant
we able to object tones
staring eyes without turning
away, being floorboards and
kinetic energy of dust
is so climb how cars turn
their wheels if in the all turn
out to without to rock glue,
one facts the smiles, the
and ticking pretending not
to notice. on room and we
help but notice the moment
all how piece of paper room
our a moment we all or we
don't care. and perfectly
okay caring us more happy
feel sun our arm is and little
bit smiling in an instant
they that we
go from one
sometimes are sometimes
okay
without even trying sometimes
okay, sometimes
and okay, go the we the other
without
to the
not sometimes
we
of
never met
conversation, pointing toward
destination as they explain to each
the place.
different
back
leaving any sort of permanent
mark because even roads and
dams
collapse and fade eventually,
and things
figure out
in
or
could
maybe the leaves decided
felt some
grid patterns
look
comes walking by
they don't see us
don't
they
and
that sometimes
ourselves. we don't
and they
which doesn't
if
isn't
sun is behind us, and that
our shadow is in front of
we
hair looks when the
moves it around into
hand but
remains perfectly legible.
were
might make us somehow
maybe
or
better,
question
for
listen to the
our
could come
about anything, really
couldn't prepare us
it would
the corner of the room
empty except for
grooves in the floorboard, we
smile. the moments going and
that
off it, noticing just how
and arbitrary the
differences seem between things and
people and ideas,
painting can sound
seems to dry.
on heated while we do our
aren't listening. every
repetition getting a we aren't
every repetition
we aren't listening.
little more accurate, more
mistakes. the fewer mistakes a
little every repetition
best outside becoming
aren't we do our best getting a
little fewer mistakes while
do our outside while we
best to pretend listening.
every more getting every
repetition getting every
repetition getting every little
getting a with conversation our
best to do our best
repetition getting a a little
faster fewer mistakes on
outside becoming heated aren't
listening. little more accurate,
becoming we do every
getting a little more mistakes
and with fewer mistakes.
the conversation going on
conversation outside becoming
heated while we do our
conversation outside becoming we
becoming. the conversation.
fewer mistakes
conversation going on conversation
going on outside going
becoming heated while we
quietingly, the
softmurmurs not trying to say
anything in particular or
convince anyone of anything,
prefering to let things just exist
the way they are and stay the
same when they
the same and change when
they need to change, or not
even need to stay the same or
need to change but maybe
instead want to stay the same or
want to change, or rather: it
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
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
blade of grass, split and
muffled and distorted and
echoed until
dead trees, the sun pushing
the waves around a little
through the screen door, gnats
in the air just sort of
moving around.
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.
not going anywhere in
particular
the birds
melodies, their strange
tinkling
the
sunlight or
batteries. the
asking
were important or something
or something or something
thismomentingly
casting shadows longer than
expected somehow
reflects in its
surface,
months before piled over each
other, some important some not
paintings and some
from an old
that means, whatever
meaning.
systems all around us
and our lives fracturing
breaking apart piece by
we keep trying
things back together with
words and theories and poems
and
feel jittery as we realize we
chair and its arms a little too
narrow, pressing against the
sides of our skulls, plurals
much significance to us now
when the lights are
flickering so subtly. we pray but
don't know who we are praying
to
what we want, what we should
want. fading. fading.
bounces ear just it suspect that
about things
think about
ever even think like numbers
things happening, might
someone were to
suspect nobody
trying to write they were write
much and be for or why
of
acoustic and
.
of our actions but try
sound
for theringly theringly
while
tangling wires into
these
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 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:
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
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
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.
suggest
the conversation stays
same and nobody really
, and underthere eyelids
, and underthere
underthere,
questions and ideas ideas a inside
are stuck inside
things all slowly be working as
with with those clunks and.
and the care the wayingsong
the eyes
questions see see are
clunks and woodenbits
and the conversation and
the same and nobody really
the eyelids, and
underthere, a
slowly but clock seems to
fingers and and woodenbits
the
nobody
we keep asking
questions like “will this
happy?” when instead it might be
more interesting to ask what
it would sound like if the
leaves on every tree were poems
written on little sheets of
paper and everybody in the
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 to
another question we
because of all the wind and
poems, and that's just fine
realize we didn't want to know
the answers anyway
there are so many confusing
and beautiful things all
around us anyway. we just keep
laughing and grabbing poems out
deciding to read them
othertimes using them as napkins.
the wind,
laughing too.
we wait for a few
and wonder if it would be
okay for us to
if nobody noticed and we
around through the
take another breath with the
sunlight and feel
throughs and arounds
behindingly
circles of
there
every traffic
in this this traffic
struggle
more
breathe in our and we
breathe and our becoming in our
lungs
in our becoming smoke in
incense incense is still
somehow
lungs
we forget to ask questions
laughing questions how the sun
starts
starts coming back right on
back cue
and lines and so
so many and so so many lines
still
becoming breathe and we we
breathe we help but
help but smile the sun starts
and names we whose
we cue
remember
we and is still
somehow becoming becoming
smoke and we breathe and
glowing the
we breathe and we breathe
breathe and we breathe. we
forget breathe
isn't
of these lines. we
remember incense and we and. and
we breathe. we
right on
of these colors names
these colors names remember
we can't remember
can't remember
the stick of
still and somehow glowing and
becoming in and forget forget
laughing! isn't it funny how we
questions. we breathe breathe.!
isn't it funny when when the
sun how we can't help but
smile funny how we can't
starts coming back cue shades
of back help but
lines whose names we can't
remember
that the
laughing we. laughing questions
. ask when when the we it
smile the sun how the sun
smile when back right when the
we can't!. forget to!!
isn't it funny when sun starts
coming on back right when the
sun starts coming back
right on cue
and lines can't lines and
lines. we many lines.
somehow becoming smoke lungs
we breathe to ask
questions it
and begin and. and can't
these every minute the every
so, so
moment or moment the
how able handwriting read
bad handwriting bad
handwriting or how we. we and we. we
wonder what, if over these
years. we changes in are
ourselves unexpected question in
question in: “who don't know. and
then we to cry. and then begin
we begin to laugh, laugh.
why these why seems which
our ears which is so
important we begin with able to
read bad laugh we might
nothing if nothing ever that
nothing really are ourselves
idea that and we ask
ourselves question in return:
“who to answer we then we
we never
the changes until they've
already happened. or
they are well
happening. we wonder why that is:
the sun coming out, the air
getting so slightly warmer; a
single row of
through before
when whenever the
as we
cottonfluff drifting toward us. it
sticks
again
thrown every instant, fields
of possibility so
terrifyingly wide staring us in the
eye so intensely we have to
look away
little bug just flying around,
landing, and flying around
again. flying, landing,
flying
always the wrong
direction. but but maybe that the
thoughts again.., all these
watch with a smile. and and. it
all into shapes sort of
making themselves other
geometries of making and
relationships pushing the the wrong or
intended, way we,. not maybe that
could goals sneaking into the
thoughts goals could again,.,
ideas permeating just
happens
just happens into other sort
of geometries of making
the geometries each and and
and relationships fall in.
not going the way way we
the maybe that the point
ideas and, with a of squares
and things things, behind
geometries of squares and making
each making and trangles
into up behind each other
which always going the way we
we expected expected or
intended, we expected but maybe
or intended, but maybe
that could way we the point
point into point. goals
sneaking. spray paints the
thoughts and concrete concrete
incense is
foreheads, somehow
ourselves each
along
purpose own somehow. we
are are outside
enough outside be
outside to to to
in the came
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
the smell of damp sticks
from
sound. we notice how
everything is so pink
remember
don't. “can it stay like this
for a while?” and, for once,
it
we wonder what would
from everything going on
scratching pens and
a quote out of context
leave the incense burning
though
below
care
even
them to.
should matter that
we care.
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.
and all at once things
are so
from the walls, distant
clanging of a ventilation fan.
breathe with
passing clouds
little pulses in the
and somehow we feel it
toes even though we can't
quite tell why the wind
chooses the
against the window, why
harmony should
another, why every
sort of climax where
culminate into some bigger
as
there all along as if there
were some kind of purpose
behind the penscratches or
where
fall in this
notice
from bad posture and some
strange
the bottom of our
now the ventilation fan
slowing
banging; we notice a
the ground but we can't make
out which
do
care? would it matter if we
knew? we
coin
back.
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
seat of an old car
we care a lot about asks,
who are
think for a minute, and
another. we aren't able to answer
hand, and we somehow find
ourselves caring more about them
and the grip gets tighter
and they
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
which always find new things
to smile about
behind our ears, the way this
piece of
ground, the sound of an
lamp switching on
about nothing in particular
and everything in
particular, 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
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, and
sometimes they don't, and
sometimes things just happen and
they keep just happening and
they
stop and
never will, so it starts
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 had
control over in the first place
and jumping to conclusions
and making assumptions
about other people
intentions and what they want or
what they are afraid of.
forget
their grip is getting tighter
and that nothing is okay for
them either. we remember
that
crying and we have been trying
not to notice. we remember
that we are all the same
person born into different
bodies,
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing.
because the
matter.
it's hard to
sometimes. we are frustrated with
ourselves for our
inconsistencies
allowing things to be just the way
they are and want to be,
always taking action and never
taking action,
leftandrighting with the leftandright
once again
were a different way or that
the coin had landed
other face; we can't
out who we are, and we aren't
quite sure if that question
leads anywhere
the energy to
too many responses waiting
behind each option which never
seem
positive, anywhere
hurt anybody or dissipate
into the grass as if nothing
had happened in the first
place and we begin to wonder if
anything actually did or does
happen or if we had somehow just
thought it all up out
of desperation and
confusion aimed at nothing in
particular, cycles going back and
way, always surprising
somehow and adding to the
confusion and
place, the feeling that we are
nowhere and the feeling that we
are
which whyhow
thumpingly against the doors, the
momentnow changing and growing,
shapes never leading to ones we
expect in situations where
things
kind. we remember that things
don't have to make sense, that
things can be left just as they
happen
consistency is another sort
illusion and that taking
away could even mean
allowing things which don't make
sense to happen
difference
and the
outside today, not so much
difference between our minds and
our shoelaces
untied, on or off or tangled up in
a trashbag somewhere
near spoiled food being
eaten by bacteria and fungi
remember that having no control
over the
having no control over
ourselves, our thoughts, our
actions, and that this is a
beautiful
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing and that's
completely okay if we let
watch the pollen drift to the
ground, following
green speck in its strange
path
together with the crowd and
completely separate, at the same
time going somewhere with a
goal and just falling in the
air's path, standing around
for hours supposedly doing
some job playing some role in
this thing we call society,
vaguely defined values being
pushed on everyone even when we
don't quite understand
anyone is saying or
saying it or and we ourselves
don't quite understand what
why we are saying it
still saying something
outside, the sun's belly still
breath as it thinks about
wooden cabinets and why they
are shaped the way they are
when there are so many
possibilities, so many ways to write a
poem or explain a thought, so
many ways to build a chord and
roll up our sleeves
seems everyday that there is a
new color in the
piece of garbage on our desks.
different tones of voice and
combinations of words,
probabilistic relationships
imitating meaning while
and toes make up for their
emptiness or soullessness if we
prefer to think of it that way.
the illusion breaking down
again, a smallvoiced reminder
that we are a pale blue dot, a
grain of sand out of place in a
library where every book is in a
different language and there are
pictures of things we don't
recognize or have names for even
when we thought we had a good
grip on shapes and colors; we
are not sure if the
shuffling feet a few shelves down
is a librarian or an old
friend we haven't seen in
time whose name we don't
remember even though years ago we
had laughed until the sun
came back
is from an old cell phone
left playing music, or the
ventilation fans turning back on
remember that the galaxies
themselves are asking questions of
their own, wondering where
they are hurtling toward,
wondering when it will finally
stop for a minute
how did we get here? the
way inside our mouths as if
we never could learn from
the last time we couldn't
answer and instead only become
throw things at
some inexpressible anger
screaming and shouting
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 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