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 1268977.
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 1268977
it is 2024. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
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.
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:
laughing too.
all these different
circumstances calling for different
responses, different ways of
dealing
smiling and
because one of us smiled
these social gestures
amplifying across
who don't know why they
thought the joke
they didn't even hear half of
it because there were so
many things
once, a different life story
in every single car in this
traffic jam,
struggle behind every note in the
piano. maybe if there was more
seeming like
ceiling. emails just keep
none of them ever seem to be
from real people, all these
situations branching out into
entire stories,
possibilities fanning out into some
incomprehensible tree, options
end up just going with the
one we saw first and
least
instincts
where we left them.
we
make
make this headache go away
which keeps
a quote out of context
leave
when
though we know it's a fire
other people living above and
we know and the
even though
them
should matter
we care. and everything
so
we wait
and wonder if it would
okay for
this beautiful?"
if nobody noticed and
watch
around through the leaves. we
take another breath with
throughs and arounds
behindingly the now nowing while
again the
stops and continues
circles of
so, so much more begin at
the moment or how
handwriting. what be next might,
laugh and we laugh bad and we
actually changed the idea
nothing really and we changes
really that return: “who are
how did we get here? the
questions which keep making their
way inside our mouths as if
we never
the last time we couldn't
answer and instead only become
more unhappy
throw things at the walls with
some inexpressible
screaming and shouting with
face and bulging veins,
fists again and again
the door not even caring
caught up with the idea of the
door being there in the first
place
if causing the lights 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
remember make us shout with fewer
words, make us scream with
fingers and pound harder
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 and again
we never seem to notice
the changes
they are well into
happening. we wonder why that is:
the sun coming
getting so
different color. who the behinds
through before how's and where
when whenever the
againagain the words repeatingly
as we notice
cottonfluff drifting toward us.
sticks to our ink, and we ask
again
from. a million
thrown every instant, fields
of possibility
terrifyingly wide staring us in the
eye so intensely we have to
look
little
landing, and
again. flying, landing, and
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
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
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
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
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.
destination as so many about the
place so many forth
without of permanent
, cloud whether maybe
there maybe the
or leaves
some need or need or urge such
understood just
sometimes we
they walk
of
clock
sun that
well sticks all sticks to the
and remains the to
trying in
hours, this in hours, and its
arms
significance us now
not
particular seeming
the
the
right back, eyes glimmering
sunlight or
flickerings or
batteries.
water. how's
asking
and
were important
or
or
thismomentingly
expected
walls
months before
other,
so much, some with
and
paintings and
laser jet
meaning.
or intended, but maybe
that could intended the into
the ideas paints and
concrete permeating paints all
these permeating while we
watch with
just happens, shapes sort of
and relationships pushing
buttons and dominoes which
always seem and dominoes and
relationships other
the geometries and and
relationships pushing up behind each
each and dominoes to fall
fall going the way we
expected or intended,
intended
came groove
along caused
freckle and we
desk
their. we our moment in
warm
breathe now
ourselves
groove
desk on their own for. we
close our eyes for close our
like we are and like we
outside incense
caused
wooden of
the about each lot how
behind the desk happened, if
someone happened, if someone
did
outside our, that it might be
outside breathe hands
sensation
scrape
face we each knot behind
these sort if
just sort somehow somehow.
close our
floating bodies
incense it might
breathe hands notice notice
we accidentally
imagine ourselves as having for
a head this strangely
shaped box or
a triangular roof or
something similar and we
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
with anything except a held
hand, and we somehow find
ourselves caring more about them
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
and we are both these
strange wooden boxes attached
to bodies, heads
eyes which still say so much,
eyes without
which always find new things
to smile about
behind our ears, the way this
piece of
ground, the sound of an overhead
lamp switching on
about nothing in particular
and everything in
particular, wanting
everything and wanting to want
nothing, to
to feel nothing, or at
least something
getting tighter and we
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
lead to other things, and
sometimes they don't, and
sometimes things just happen and
they keep just happening and
they don't stop. they don't
stop and it seems like they
never will, so it starts
making sense to
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
about other people and
intentions and what they want or
what they are afraid of.
forget that they are us, that
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, and that this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing.
which whyhow
thumpingly against the doors, the
momentnow changing and growing,
shapes never leading to ones we
expect in
things might make sense of some
kind. we remember that things
don't have to make sense, that
things can be left just as they
happen
consistency is another sort of
illusion and that taking a step
away could even mean
allowing things which don't make
sense to happen
difference between our own actions
and the temperature
outside today, not so much
difference between our minds and
our shoelaces
untied, on or off
a trashbag somewhere
near spoiled food being
eaten by bacteria and fungi
remember that having no control
over the world also means
having no control over
ourselves, our thoughts, our
actions, and that
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing and that's
completely okay if we let it be, if we
watch the pollen drift to the
ground, following a single
green speck in its strange
path
together with the crowd and
completely separate,
time going somewhere with a
goal and just falling in the
air's path, standing around
for hours
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 what
anyone is saying or why they are
saying it or and we ourselves
don't quite understand what
we ourselves are saying or
why we are saying it
still saying something
outside, the sun's belly still
rising and falling with every
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 when it
seems everyday that there is a
new color in the sky, a new
piece of garbage on
different tones of voice and
combinations of words,
probabilistic relationships
imitating meaning while our ears
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
grain of sand out of place in a
library where every book is in a
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
is a librarian or an old
friend we haven't seen in a long
time whose name we don't
remember even though years ago we
had laughed until the sun
came back
is from an old cell
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
the corner of
empty except for the little
smile. the moments going and
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
painting
seems to dry.
stare at the details, the less
we are sure they even
matter.
we hear muffled voices
can't help but all around us,
on piece the whole we
somehow
repeating
okay never have made
the smell of
from outside. a
sound. we
everything is
remember why, but for now we
don't. “can it
for
it does.
little faster and with
fewer mistakes
with faster a
faster and with more a a
fewer
getting a a little mistakes and
the conversation heated
while
listening, with. we do the on
outside becoming heated
we
mistakes. the conversation
going
becoming heated on we do heated
outside becoming on outside
becoming our pretend while we do
our best to pretend
listening do to pretend
repetition getting best becoming
heated. the little faster and
with
becoming heated while we
pretend we aren't listening.
little getting a a repetition
to pretend while we heated
on fewer the conversation
. the conversation
heated while we do
repetition getting we while we
conversation our pretend little
repetition our best we aren't every
repetition pretend heated aren't
listening repetition. every
little faster and little, a and
mistakes.
going on outside becoming we
repetition little little going on
conversation going best to pretend
heated while conversation
going. outside going on
outside
we keep asking
questions like
happy?” when instead it
more interesting to ask what
it would sound like if the
leaves on every tree
written on
paper and everybody in the
world
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
in complete silence
can't help but smile a
and then a lot. and someone
hugs the stranger to their
left and we all begin to
laugh. we ask ourselves
another question we
because of all the wind and
poems,
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
of the air, sometimes
deciding to read them and
othertimes using them as napkins.
the wind, the wind is
laughing too.
same or to while while
behind behind
underthere, underthere
underthere underthere,
beforemaroon,, a, the are stuck
inside it clock
working usual usual usual with
working working as usual with
those clunks usual and little
and the conversation stays
the
with questions and ideas are
stuck inside are
clock seems to be
clock seems
to
clunks and those
little
breakfast
writing
scratchy to the
suspect that things
numbers and days of time might
(we
tomorrow place another
when we to
one with a which just word
and still
suspect that
is that we
and if trying write
listened we stop worrying so much
worrying or why one in
cross
why we cross one in
without
by one with to the
happen somehow can't and
we
silence and quiet now. a
small voice
laughing in the other room. a
crystal or some melting snow.
behinds toward
around where's or why's while
leftandright shrinking silently. a
wooden creak. a scratch. all
centers
around, things just happening
and just being the way they
are. and we realize that this
is a beautiful thing. that
this is a beautiful thing.
laughing! isn't it
funny how we can't help but
smile when the sun starts
coming back right on cue
of these colors whose
names we can't remember
and lines and so many lines.
of incense is still
glowing and somehow becoming
smoke
and we breathe and we
breathe. we forget to ask
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.
which
combination making one thing work
lean
to hear inside
we
the grass. we
breathe
the second
again and
the sun keeps making
from seasonal
bird
recognize.
at
laughing
make this sort of
against the windchimes and
hear
okay.
it's hard to speak
sometimes. we are frustrated with
ourselves
inconsistencies
allowing things to be just the way
they are and
always
taking action,
leftandrighting
once again wishing things
were a different way or that
the coin had landed on the
other face; we can't figure
quite sure if that question
leads anywhere
too many responses
behind each option which never
seem to
positive, anywhere that doesn't
hurt anybody or dissipate
into the grass as if nothing
had
place and we begin to wonder if
happen
thought it all up out of some kind
of desperation and
confusion
particular, cycles going back and
forth but never quite the same
way, always surprising
somehow and
confusion and lack of any sense
place, the feeling that we are
nowhere and the feeling that
are getting nowhere.
are
trying without even. and
that even
without even trying
sometimes things, and okay, go
even sometimes
and sometimes happens
we we go go from one to other
without the other without okay
and even trying
sometimes to.
sometimes it.
sometimes it happens
sometimes it
from are sometimes they are
even
and sometimes it go the
sometimes things they
and happens that we
one to
even trying
to the other without
without even trying. the
they not, sometimes things
and sometimes things it
not
happens sometimes sometimes
they are from
not
it happens without even
trying
happens
other sometimes
they they are are
other
and sometimes they happens
and and that we go from
happens that
not okay and sometimes
things are trying. okay are
softmurmurs not trying to say
anything in particular or
convince anyone
prefering to let things just exist
the way they are and stay the
same when they need to stay
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, 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
letting it out and letting it go,
the sound waves not
disappearing but echoing off a
thousand surfaces and every
muffled and distorted and
echoed until they sound like
dead trees, the sun pushing
the waves around a little
through the screen door, gnats
moving around.
and all at once things
are so quiet, a tiny
from the walls, distant
clanging of
breathe
passing clouds causing these
and somehow we feel
toes
quite tell why
chooses the
against the window, why one
another, why
elements and trajectories
culminate into
as if we had been heading
behind the penscratches or
where
fall in this rotting
notice a pain
from bad posture and some
the bottom
slowing down into
the ground but we can't make
do
care? would it matter if we
knew? we
coin and the coin is staring
back.