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 4036327.
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 4036327
it is 2024. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
the smell of damp sticks
from outside. a slowmoving
sound. we notice how
everything is so pink maybe we
remember why, but for now we
don't. “can it stay like this
for a while?” and, for once,
it does.
we never seem to notice
the changes until they've
already happened. or at least
they are well into
happening. we wonder why that is:
the clouds evaporating and
the sun coming out, the air
getting so slightly warmer; a
single row of bricks painted a
different color. who the behinds
through before how's and where
when whenever the
againagain the words repeatingly
as we notice a little
cottonfluff drifting toward us. it
sticks to our ink, and we ask
again where meaning comes
from. a million coins being
thrown every instant, fields
of possibility so
terrifyingly wide staring us in the
eye so intensely we have to
look away and we notice this
little bug just flying around,
landing, and flying around
again. flying, landing, and
flying around again.
and all at once things
are so quiet, a tiny hiss
from the walls, distant
clanging of a ventilation fan. we
breathe with the sunlight,
passing clouds causing these
little pulses in the sunglow
and somehow we feel it in our
toes even though we can't
quite tell why the wind
chooses the pitches it sings
against the window, why one
harmony should point to
another, why every story has some
sort of climax where
elements and trajectories
culminate into some bigger thing
as if we had been heading
there all along as if there
were some kind of purpose
behind the penscratches or
where this leaf decides to
fall in this rotting pile we
notice a pain in our lower back
from bad posture and some
strange sense of pressure from
the bottom of our right foot
now the ventilation fan
slowing down into a periodic
banging; we notice a coin lying on
the ground but we can't make
out which side it landed on.
do we care? is it good to
care? would it matter if we
knew? we are staring at the
coin and the coin is staring
back.
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?" some glass
window creaking under winds,
some oil spilled in a parking
lot. how again the why's and
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 particles trapped in
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? hard to
see the picture from a
pixel, hard to find the poem
through a word a letter an inkdot
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: we ask each other where
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 not
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.
we wait for a few minutes
and wonder if it would be
okay for us to ask now: "is
this beautiful?" we wonder
if nobody noticed and we
watch the air just sort of move
around through the leaves. we
take another breath with the
sunlight and feel warmer.
throughs and arounds
behindingly the now nowing while
again the time continues and
stops and continues again.
circles of ink we close our eyes.
marbles in a glass bowl,
not going anywhere in
particular seeming to wonder where
the birds get their
melodies, their strange rhythms
tinkling or rubbing cardboard.
the dark bottle looking
right back, eyes glimmering
so loudly with the
sunlight or fluorescent
flickerings or uncharged
batteries. the lithium looking for
water. how's this different?
asking between colorshades
and subject matter like it
were important or something
or something or something
or anothersong
thismomentingly or an old box of cereal,
casting shadows longer than
expected somehow while the light
reflects in its own color onto the
walls and the nearby desk
surface, papers scattered from
months before piled over each
other, some important some not
so much, some with colors
and blindly drawn
paintings and some printed out
from an old black and white
laser jet printer, whatever
that means, whatever those
meaning.
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 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 having so
much significance to us now
when the lights are
flickering so subtly. we pray but
don't know who we are praying
to who we are praying for,
what we want, what we should
want. fading. fading.
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,
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 sun pushing
the waves around a little
through the screen door, gnats
in the air just sort of
moving around.
inside feel feel our
these acoustic buzzing
inside our chests and making
warmer but more. another time
every quiet every to hear
inside we aware of our actions
but notice. the the this
fuzzy grass and just just
where again all and second the
thisthat thisthat ticking by
second hand again, , we and the
call we don't recognize . we
can't help but smile at the
laughing and somehow the of the
somehow voices and of people
laughing make vibrations
buzzing buzzing inside our
chests chests
the corner of the room
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 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 can sound the ink never
seems to dry.
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.
how did we get here? the
questions which keep making their
way inside our mouths as if
we never could learn from
the last time we couldn't
answer and instead only become
more unhappy and began to
throw things at the walls with
some inexpressible anger
screaming and shouting with a red
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 another why and another
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 and again
without any, just to
scratchy pen which bounces
through our ear just through our
ear just going. we suspect
that things just happen we
can't help but smile a little
and then laugh at how absurd
it is that we ever even like
numbers and happening sound
like if someone were to
listen (we if they were to write
as we stop and books might
why we out in place one
without any particular sense
intention to begin one scratchy
our ear just it. we help
smile a is ever even think
about , happening time might
(we if they (we trying much
they books and start
tomorrow or why one thing out in
place of we cross one thing of
thing out in another when we
sense of intention to with ,
lines one by one with just
going with a scratchy pen and
going straight to the next it
we just happen but just
happen somehow and then how
absurd is at it is that we ever
about things like numbers of
the happening at the sound
someone (we write things about
stop they listened . we write
stop and (not why we another
when we thing of when are
without particular intention
to particular with, just
lines, just sense begin with,
by a and one straight on the
next word which bounces
through our ear going with still
just just a even and ever even
is that we ever even things
things happening at the same
time might sound like
happening, what two things
happening same time might two
things the (we nobody ) and were
write things down as they
about ) why we cross one in
place of another to begin with
, just going across a
scratchy pen and with bounces
through and still just going
with. we suspect and help but
how absurd it is that we
absurd it is that things ever
think about of things
happening the might sound like
were same suspect nobody is )
and write things down as .
worrying about scheduling and
worrying what breakfast
tomorrow place writing without
any sense of with , lines one
by one with a which bounces
through our ear bounces ear just
going
could. and
interactions again goals sneaking
into maybe that that that
could could. goals sneaking
into the thoughts and colors
and ideas permeating with
happens outlines trangles into
all just of squares and
trangles outlines sort behind
each other the dominoes
which always seem to fall way
we expected but maybe
maybe that. the point into the
point point again. ideas
paints and and concrete, spray
colors and ideas permeating
while we happens . outlines
the we go from one to and
are they, and sometimes it
happens we one to other without
without things are not they are
that to sometimes things are
are , and one to the. and
sometimes things, and sometimes
are, and from one to and
sometimes not we we
it's hard to speak
sometimes. we are frustrated with
ourselves for our
inconsistencies once at peace and
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 wishing things
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 that question
leads anywhere hard to find
the energy to say anything,
too many responses waiting
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 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 some kind
of desperation and
confusion aimed at nothing in
particular, cycles going back and
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.
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 if we should instead be
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 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? and we
think for a minute, and then
another. we aren't able to answer
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 without
eyes which still say so much,
eyes without laughinglines
which always find new things
to smile about an itch
behind our ears, the way this
piece of paper falls on the
ground, the sound of an overhead
lamp switching on laughing
about nothing in particular
and everything in
particular, wanting to want
everything and wanting to want
nothing, to feel everything and
to feel nothing, or at
least something the grip
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, 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 don't stop. 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. 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 and their
intentions and what they want or
what they are afraid of. we
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 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.
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 fading in
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 it's
beautiful enough and it's
surprising enough and that itself
may be the most beautiful
and surprising thing of all
at the moment.
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 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 we
can't help but smile a little,
and then a lot. and someone
hugs the stranger to their
left and we all begin to
laugh. we ask ourselves
another question we can't hear
because of all the wind and
poems, and that's just fine we
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.
how each the wires each
each knot in the wires behind
the desk wires happened, if
someone it it on these things
just sort of happen for close
our eyes are floating
incense is somehow in that to
warm now and now. now where
they came the each groove and
freckle and scratch on how each
wires behind the did things
just sort of these things
sort of of we close a a moment
like bodies somehow outside
to warm open the sensation
and sensation in in our
hands small dents in we they
came from scrape along the
paint every freckle and
scratch on every freckle paint
the how knot in the behind
pretend our best to
pretend heated aren't
listening repetition getting a a
more accurate, listening, a
little faster a repetition
getting a little more a we to
pretend we best we aren't
listening we aren't pretend we
aren't pretend listening .
every listening. every
repetition faster and with fewer
faster and more getting a
little more we aren't
listening. little more accurate.
a little faster and the
conversation going
a if things are
repeating don't care. have made
more human, more is laughing
on glowing through our
skin and the music just keeps
going around little smiling
we are us what every person
and the air these tones
staring turning, absorbed by
the kind of kinetic of dust
trees of wonder if will
so, like begin are able
to read. handwriting
laugh , wonder what might be
next, if anything actually
if actually changed years
or if nothing ever idea in
return: we don't know don't
then we cry laugh, we see
can't these questions and
laugh, and laugh questions
aimless in the first why these
place when it every in like
seems like every or second a
new question
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. a
wooden creak. a scratch. all
centers things happening all
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.
maybe something some
need such these grid
patterns come up when these grid
patterns come up we from below.
and now someone we know. and
now someone our someone we
know comes our sitting place
up so so they don't say
anything. or maybe just not say
really ., we clock if yet, and it
isn't now we that behind our
shadow notice wind shapes . we
the ink and try to ink and our
hand somehow it all sticks
well. smudges might note two
and help us think of
something we maybe a be the idea a
moment , to the wind and
airplanes and sun warming our legs
come from this really
anything could or couldn't for it
, would matter anyway of
toward their they explain to
explain each how they place
events all these, even and dams
statues what they we try to where
the patterns try to cloud
leaves all be leaves felt some
urge grow way that these grid
now know they don't away and
quietly understood that
sometimes it's be that sometimes
be that and don't know , and
of another thing happens
which doesn't. sight.
doesn't and matter , matter
glance we glance eight yet us,
shadow is in front of we notice
how strange our when moves
it we . we try to hand but
somehow lead with all sticks the
smudges might make might make us
word a note or misread a
misread a note us of something we
wouldn't have otherwise , but, a
different the idea moment close
our just listen to we wonder
we wonder what could
anything could or prepare us for
could or, and prepare, and it
would matter it we listen to
the sounds of all these
people we've never
conversation , met and, toward their
destination as destination as they
explain pointing toward the
place how all motions , back
and forth , events going
back and little these little
these, events going and back
and little motions of hats.
these little events going
back and forth without
leaving permanent of fade
things collapse and what try to
figure the patterns try to
figure out where the from,
whether we or if maybe something
maybe if maybe something be
there maybe something could
be there, that something
could really to grow in that
these we look at from comes
all these different
circumstances calling for different
responses, different ways of
dealing and smiling. we are
smiling and we don't know why
because one of us smiled first?
these social gestures
amplifying across a group of people
who don't know why they
thought the joke was funny when
they didn't even hear half of
it because there were so
many things going on all at
once, a different life story
in every single car in this
traffic jam, a different
struggle behind every note in the
piano. maybe if there was more
time. but there isn't. the sky
seeming like just another
ceiling. emails just keep
arriving and keep arriving and
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 after
options impossible to weigh. we
end up just going with the
one we saw first and that
seems as good as any, for now at
least we go looking for our
instincts but we don't remember
where we left them.
and we and we breathe...
we it funny we we funny how
we can't can't help how the
sun sun starts back these
colors on cue the sun smile
coming on cue colors we shades
of these colors lines so
many lines so remember that
the stick is still glowing
and we breathe forget
breathe and our we breathe we
forget to ask we we forget to ask
isn't it funny how we can't
help but can't help but smile
colors whose names we remember
and lines lines and lines we
so many stick is stick
remember that the we breathe. we
forget funny how we can't help
but smile sun starts back
whose names we can't remember
lines whose names can't lines
and so so remember many
lines. so of incense still
that the incense is still and
somehow becoming and somehow
becoming smoke in somehow
becoming smoke in our lungs we
breathe and we breathe we to ask
ask ask questions forget to
how we but can't can't but
smile when how we laughing
breathe! forget to ask
questions the sun starts can't
remember lines and and lines and
can't lines and so many stick
stick incense is in our lungs
somehow becoming smoke in our we
our becoming. and and we
breathe and we breathe ask.
laughing! help but smile when
help but can't help but the
sun back whose names names
can't remember can't
remember these colors of these
these colors whose of of many
incense is is in we breathe it
funny isn't but it laughing it
funny how we
because the longer we
stare at the details, the less
we are sure they even
matter.
we wonder what would
make us happy, what would
make this headache go away
which keeps distracting us
from everything going on the
scratching pens and observations,
a quote out of context we
leave the incense burning
when we go to sleep even
though we know it's a fire
hazard and it puts our lives in
danger and the lives of all the
other people living above and
below us, and all of the people
we know and the people who
care about what happens to us
even though we never asked
them to. we wonder why it
should matter that something
happens to anyone, we wonder why
we care. and everything is
so quiet.
the same time going same
time going and just goal and
falling standing doing for
hours supposedly hours doing
some job some thing pushed
defined vaguely values, when on
everyone even when we don't quite
understand ourselves it the wind
still sun's outside still
rising and rising it and why, so
ways so up our sleeves it
seems when it seems everyday
sky voice probabilistic
words, combinations of
combinations of voice probabilistic
ears and toes soullessness
if we prefer to think of
that way. the breaking down
breaking are a pale blue dot, a
the. agains wind about
to while and how ideas
ideas how to it these things
all so slowly be as usual and
little and the conversation
stays the same and nobody same
and really seems to care the
a to while behind the
while behind and, a and
underthere, and ideas see under a
the be working as usual with
as with those as usual with
and and woodenbits a and the
the conversation stays
stays the same and nobody
really seems about the a we
eyelids, and underthere, a eyes
again with questions and
ideas how see under a see when
we are these things all
working with those and little a a
we suggest a counterpoint
. and the counterpoint .
conversation same and nobody really
seems to about wayingsong the
eyes and ideas stuck inside
it clock seems to be clunks
and little woodenbits to
nobody