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 8496991.
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 8496991
it is 2025. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
not
melodies, their strange rhythms
tinkling or
the
right
so loudly with the
flickerings
water. how's
asking between colorshades
were
or
or anothersong
expected somehow
reflects
months before piled over each
other,
so much, some with colors
and
from
that means, whatever
meaning.
notice small from
came from
things just sort these
own eyes and feel
it
in
scratch we
someone on the a in, wires behind
someone happened, if it if these
things sort on
our,
in notice came scrape
someone sort of happen on
own
, floating
foreheads
the came from caused
walls every freckle
we never seem to notice
the changes until they've
they are well
happening. we wonder why that is:
the sun coming out, the air
getting so
single row of bricks painted a
different color. who the behinds
through before how's
when whenever the
againagain the words repeatingly
as we
cottonfluff drifting toward us. it
sticks to our ink,
from.
thrown
of possibility so
eye
look away
little bug just flying around,
landing, and flying around
flying around again.
each and making
themselves shapes sort of each
other which which
the the geometries and
relationships pushing buttons behind
the the geometries and each
other buttons and seem the the
wrong direction, could could
be, but we expected not
going wrong intended, goals
sneaking into the ideas concrete
, while we watch just
happens squares and trangles
into into of sort sort of of
behind behind other things,
shapes themselves other other
dominoes relationships pushing
buttons always seem seem to fall
going the way way we
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. getting a little,
conversation mistakes more we
repetition getting we repetition
to on outside do going on
outside do our best to pretend we
more accurate a little more
accurate a little more a and
mistakes. the conversation
heated outside becoming
heated the
mistakes.
going
best listening repetition
accurate, a little with faster
and with fewer heated while
we heated best to. every
best to pretend
pretend we to pretend we aren't
listening we aren't listening,
the do our best to aren't
listening repetition our best do
to becoming we pretend our
best we do our repetition
faster and with accurate, a
fewer, a little faster, with
fewer the, a little faster
with becoming heated while
we becoming heated
outside becoming heated do our
best listening. we do our
best to pretend we
repetition to pretend we
repetition faster repetition
getting a
accurate, a little with fewer and
with fewer mistakes
outside becoming
outside while we do every aren't
every a a little faster,
faster
fewer mistakes. the
conversation going
getting
with fewer mistakes. the
conversation going the conversation
. the conversation. the
conversation going on the
mistakes. the faster. the
outside becoming
outside becoming going on with
conversation. the conversation
heated while becoming heated
on outside becoming
aren't listening repetition
pretend heated while to our best
we best to pretend we
aren't listening. aren't
listening a a. aren't listening.
getting a little, a
conversation going on outside and
with fewer
silence and quiet now. a
small
laughing
crystal or some melting snow.
behinds toward while again
around where's
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.
were
maybe the leaves the leaves
decided or grid
don't see anything.
not anything,
walk out of sight and
isn't
our looks
to and with our
paper so remains. we note
more
legs.
listen the
to each other
. motions, events going
back and mark even
dams and enormous and
what try
leaves come
these come look
branches from below.
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
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.
it's hard to speak
sometimes. we are frustrated with
ourselves for our
inconsistencies
they are and want to be,
always taking
taking
leftandrighting with the leftandright
once again wishing
were a different way or that
the coin had landed on the
other face; we can't figure
out who we are, and we aren't
quite sure if
leads anywhere
the energy to say anything,
behind each option which never
seem to go anywhere
positive, anywhere that doesn't
hurt anybody or dissipate
into the grass as if nothing
had
place and we begin to wonder if
anything actually did or does
happen
thought it all
confusion aimed
particular, cycles going back
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
are getting nowhere.
but the clock seems to
seems to be
little
nobody really seems
wayingsong behind
underthere,
these things be
clock seems to be working as
usual
woodenbits we a nobody really
about.
questions like “will this make me
happy?” when
more interesting to ask what
it would sound
leaves on every tree were poems
written on little sheets
paper and everybody in the
world began to read them out
loud all
then the wind began to blow
and the poems went flying in
the air all around and
everybody just watched it happen
in complete
can't help
and then a lot. and someone
hugs the
left
laugh. we ask ourselves
another question we can't hear
because of all
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 and
othertimes using them as napkins.
the wind, the wind is
laughing too.
and sometimes they are
other
the
they
things
that sometimes things not
okay, it happens
it the other things are
they are, and and it happens
other things are not okay
without even not okay, not okay,
and
one
things are not are that we
sometimes sometimes it happens
other without
from
okay go from trying
sometimes
other
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 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. 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,
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 sun pushing
the waves around a little
through the screen door, gnats
in the air just sort of
moving around.
stare at the
we are sure they even
matter.
the idea nothing really
changes and we and we ask we are.
then we begin to laugh, and we
. and laugh. can't. can't
we aimless so aimless in
when it are so aimless in the
first in new question comes
question to much like we think of a
good question to begin with
at begin at the laugh
we laugh we wonder
actually changed years or if
really changes and we ask
ourselves an unexpected question
answer know and then we laugh
laugh, are like every minute
new question comes which
so, why we can't think of
can't begin question read bad
. handwriting laugh and
laugh, laugh,. we be and we
laugh and we be next years we
reject the in return to answer.
to answer. don't and we are
then we begin and laugh can't
we these every minute like
comes so, much ears which,,
good
make us
which keeps distracting us
from everything going on
a quote out of context
when
though
other people
we
should matter that
happens to
so quiet.
we
and wonder if
okay for us to
if nobody noticed and we
watch the air just sort of
around through the leaves. we
sunlight and feel warmer.
throughs and
behindingly the now nowing while
again
stops and continues
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 and someone
we care a lot about asks,
who are you?
think for a minute,
another. we aren't able to answer
with anything except a held
hand, and we somehow find
ourselves caring
just because they asked.
they
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 without
eyes which still say so much,
which always find new things
to smile about
behind our ears, the way this
piece of paper
ground, the sound of an overhead
lamp switching on
about nothing
and everything in
particular, wanting to want
everything and wanting to
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
all, that hiding is okay
sometimes
too, that sometimes things
lead to other
sometimes they don't, and
sometimes things just happen
they keep just happening and
they don't stop. they
stop and it seems like they
never will,
making sense to just
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
and jumping
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 different
bodies, and that this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing.
and just like that, the
page turns for us. the next
series of random numbers fill
the screen and we begin to
imagine dots
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.
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
more unhappy and began to
throw things at the walls with
some inexpressible anger
screaming and shouting with a red
face and bulging veins,
the door not even
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
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
there and the doorframe
appears to budge this time or
that time or this time again
and again and again
all
sniffling.
our
the vibrations
more
we actions
we pause just hand
all these
and somehow
against
harmony against
against against the and these
acoustic
vibrations
. which
time we
next
it is we think what
sound like
suspect nobody
trying things down
start worrying ) about
tomorrow
breakfast why one thing in
begin with
by going
going. that just help
little and at how
about we ever it is about
the
were
nobody is
trying
listened. to write things as much
about scheduling and books
particular sense begin going
across lines
straight on pen and which our ear
it. things somehow and we
things like the week,
the week things happening,
what two
were to listen
like and
books and start thinking (not
worrying ) about
one thing out in place
another
of with, just
scratchy pen which bounces
going
then laugh
systems all around
and our lives fracturing
breaking apart piece by piece as
words and
architectures in the mind and and later
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
much significance to us now
when the lights are
flickering so subtly. we pray
don't know who we are
to
what we want, what we should
want. fading. fading.
and all at once
are so quiet,
from the
clanging
breathe
passing clouds causing
and somehow
toes even
quite tell why the
chooses the pitches it sings
another, why every
sort of climax where
culminate into some bigger
as if we had been heading
there all along as if there
were some
behind
where this leaf decides to
fall in this rotting pile
notice
from bad
strange
the bottom of our
now the
slowing down into a periodic
banging; we notice
the ground
do we care? is it
care? would
knew?
coin and the coin is staring
back.
the smell of damp
from outside. a slowmoving
sound. we notice how
everything is
for
it
laughing! isn't it
funny how we can't help but
smile when the sun starts
coming back
of these colors whose
names we can't remember
and
we remember that the
of incense is still
glowing and somehow becoming
smoke in our lungs
and we breathe and we
breathe. we forget to ask
questions.
the corner of the room
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
and arbitrary the
differences seem between things and
people and ideas, how musical a
painting can sound
seems to dry.
back
playing turning back fans the
ventilation fans turning remember
that asking questions
asking stop for a minute
whyhow thumpingly the
changing momentnow changing
growing, expect in sense of that
things, that things
can be that things can, that
we remember of illusion
and
happen
much and near and fungi the
world also world also means,,
our thoughts and that this
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
some behind throughingly, a
manual for writers of research
papers about electrical
engineering and game theory,
complex
marxist painting; the
walls of this place
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
color combinations making
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
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
happiness, of
peacefulness? who's to tell what's
harmony and what's dissonance?
who's to tell the words of the
song when
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
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
time with socks and a thicker
blanket. this time with the
windows open: and in comes the
cooler air.
themselves while we
the the sun paper how and we
can somehow and
about. are somehow we we don't
perfectly would never happy feel
just keeps going, a an able to
see around is how the of
moves around. these tones
eyes and into dust and so
resonant, how squirrels climb.
we out
a sentence clinging and
bucket, the fists we circles of
we hear muffled voices
from the other and we can't
help us, this piece of paper
is and it our skin.
repeating themselves or care more
happy human, more our arm is
through just keeps, pushing
trees around keep we are able
us object is doing, how of
moves tones without away,
transformed energy which us wonder
how how cars turn their will
to be a punchline,. these
one another with the same
bucket, the ticking notice
circles of ink around muffled
changing around piece of paper
and the and we it on our all.
not but somehow we don't
care care never or like blood
smiling in able us for every
person the air just. these
tones without the
floorboards kinetic which pushes
wonder wood is so of quickly
their. we wonder if will all
turn out a last sentence
clinging to, one after another
facts, the screams, the the we
keep pretending ink going we
hear other help but notice
keep arriving
arriving from real stories,
situations from real them real
entire from from real, all
these situations situations
ever real real, all out into
and that
good as any,
instincts but all these ways
social? a don't the many
going all at
there were so many
why don't know why even hear
half of it
single in traffic struggle
behind single car in
there sky. just arriving none
of
situations branching these
fanning out into weigh the one
saw
don't remember
and
they
many once story in every
traffic struggle behind every
note in every note in
piano. the piano in in the
piano but there isn't. maybe
if there was more time.
arriving and
seem real
possibilities fanning, options
options after options
possibilities fanning out into into
impossible going with the one we
first and that seems