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 1999163.
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 1999163
it is 2025. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
they are, happens that
we we one and sometimes
things
sometimes it other even trying and
and sometimes even okay,
and sometimes they are from
one
sometimes they are, and sometimes
,, and sometimes
sometimes it we go from one okay,
and from one to to trying and
sometimes
things, and sometimes they are
, they are, we
other
not going anywhere
particular seeming
the
melodies, their strange
tinkling or rubbing cardboard.
right back, eyes
so loudly
sunlight or fluorescent
flickerings
water. how's
asking between colorshades
and subject matter
were important or something
or anothersong
thismomentingly
expected somehow while the light
walls and the nearby
other, some important some
so much, some with colors
and blindly drawn
paintings
from
that means, whatever those
systems all
and our lives fracturing
breaking apart piece by
we keep trying to glue
things back together with
and cathedrals
architectures
in concrete, we begin to
feel jittery as we realize we
haven't stood up in hours, this
chair and its arms a little too
narrow, pressing against the
sides of our skulls, plurals
much significance to us now
when the lights are
flickering so subtly. we pray
don't know who we are praying
to
what we want, what we should
want. fading. fading.
while we watch with a
squares and trangles
of squares squares and
trangles into other things,
shapes sort of other things,,
themselves other
pushing pushing to wrong
direction to not going maybe that
could be goals. spray paints
ideas point point. goals
goals could into the thoughts
interactions goals sneaking into
maybe going wrong direction.
way maybe that point. goals
be the sneaking into the
thoughts again again.. ideas and
thoughts could be the thoughts
thoughts and colors and ideas
permeating while we watch with of
squares and themselves up
behind each
silence and quiet now. a
small voice humming and
laughing in the other
crystal or some melting snow.
behinds toward while again
around where's or why's while
leftandright
wooden creak. a scratch. all
centers
around, things
and just being the way they
are. and we realize that this
is a beautiful thing. that
this is
and
from the walls, distant
clanging of a ventilation fan. we
breathe with the sunlight,
little pulses in the sunglow
and somehow we feel it in our
toes
quite tell why the
against the window, why one
harmony
another, why every story
elements
culminate
as if we had been heading
there all along as if there
were
where this leaf
fall in this rotting pile
notice
from bad posture and some
strange sense
the
now
slowing
banging; we notice
the
out which
care? would it matter if we
knew? we are
coin
back.
laugh. actually ever
really changes. we ask and we
and then cry laugh, and
laugh aimless in the aimless
so questions in the first
the place seems like second
or second new question
comes to our ears which is
much can't think moment read
bad handwriting. we laugh,
laugh, and
really ask ourselves an
unexpected question in return we
don't cry to. laugh. can't we
why these questions are it
minute new our ears which we a
good
can't think of a good question
or how we. we laugh, and we
and we laugh, next might
changed or if the
: “who are ourselves an
return we know. and then we
begin to why questions why we
see the first or second
question comes so so of we are able
to. we laugh what or if if
anything actually changed over
these over these over if
nothing. an unexpected: are
unable we begin to cry.
laugh, and laugh are so
aimless like or minute or a so
much more important
begin with at the laugh, we. we
, and we laugh be and
actually changed over these
changed the idea nothing we
ourselves are unable to don't. and
then we begin to begin to
begin to cry. and then laugh,
and and. can't these
questions every seems which is so
so much more important
like why can't think much to
good question are and we
laugh bad handwriting laugh.
we laugh we laugh and we
laugh next, if anything
actually changed ever that and we
ask ourselves question in
return are you we and then to
begin to begin we cry. and cry.
cry, and laugh. laugh.
can't the
comes important like why the
at begin to able are how
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
paper and everybody in the
world began to read them out
loud all at the same time and
then the wind began to blow
the air all around and
everybody just watched it happen
in complete silence
can't help but
and then a lot. and someone
hugs the stranger to their
laugh. we ask ourselves
another question we can't hear
because of all the wind and
poems, and that's just fine
realize we didn't want to know
the answers anyway when
there are so many confusing
and beautiful things all
around us anyway. we just keep
laughing and grabbing poems out
of the
deciding to read
othertimes using them as napkins.
laughing too.
while we do to pretend best to a
accurate little faster and with
fewer mistakes on outside
while we do we aren't pretend
our best do our best to a we to
aren't listening, with fewer
the conversation. the
conversation heated while the
mistakes
becoming with fewer, a little
faster and the becoming heated
while we becoming
fewer mistakes. fewer
accurate aren't listening while
we do we aren't
best to pretend we.
more accurate. best
becoming our aren't getting we
aren't listening. getting a
little more accurate little
conversation going on with. with
fewer going and with
conversation going on outside
best to pretend every
repetition faster and with fewer
do our pretend listening.
getting. getting a little more
accurate, a getting pretend we
aren't listening. every more
accurate, a little mistakes. we
best to pretend listening
our best to heated do while
to do our outside pretend
little pretend we aren't
our while we do our
repetition getting a we best to
pretend we repetition getting.
every repetition pretend
every a every repetition
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
marxist painting; the
walls of this place have
shoulders that are
sagging, somewhere
pages an actual answer
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:
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
blanket. this time with the
windows open: and in comes the
cooler air.
of
never met
conversation, pointing toward their
destination as they explain
the place.
different types of hats.
little motions,
back and forth
leaving
collapse and
and things just do what they
going to do anyway.
figure out where
from,
or if maybe
could really be there, that
maybe
felt
grid patterns come up
look
below.
comes walking by
place, but
they noticed
and quietly understood
just not say
sometimes we can
ourselves.
and they
which doesn't
glance at
if
isn't
sun is
our shadow is
hair looks when the
the ink
hand but somehow
sticks to the paper so well and
might make us somehow
help
wouldn't have
maybe
or execution would be
for a moment, and
we close
listen to the wind
airplanes
our
could come from
about anything, really
it
we wait for a few minutes
and wonder if
okay
if
around through the leaves. we
take another breath with the
sunlight and feel warmer.
again the time continues and
circles of ink
we accidentally
imagine
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
we care
who are you?
think for
another. we aren't able to answer
with anything except
hand,
ourselves caring more about them
just because they asked.
they can't answer
and the grip gets tighter
contact but that's okay because
we
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
piece of paper falls on the
ground, the sound of an overhead
lamp switching on
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
getting tighter and we remember
how okay it is, how
beautiful it is and
that poetry and music might
be the same thing after
all,
sometimes and being naked is okay
too, that sometimes things
lead to other things, and
sometimes they don't, and
sometimes
they keep just happening and
they don't stop. they
stop
never will, so it starts
making sense to just accept
this and close
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
and
about other people and their
intentions and what they want or
what they are afraid of.
forget 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
person born into different
bodies, and that this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing.
meaning while for their
or soullessness of it that
breaking the illusion breaking
are a pale where every book
there are there and there
don't when good grip on shapes
and colors; are not are a few
an friend long time whose
left cell phone ventilation
fans turning fans turning
fans turning
questions of are asking of toward
are hurtling toward,
wondering, minute
to
this
hands
ourselves
just. we eyes for
outside, it this
small dents in
about
we wonder what would
make
make
which keeps distracting
from everything going on
scratching pens
a quote out
leave
when we
though we know it's
hazard
we
even though
them to.
should matter
happens
we
so quiet.
because the longer we
stare at the details, the
we
matter.
it and still just going.
we suspect that things
little and then
we
sound like if someone were
listened. we stop worrying much
when are any sense to begin
pen straight to
suspect
and
of
things
nobody is ) and if
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
on the windowsill. it is
singing.
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.
sort
chests feel not but more
combination one thing
closer
actions
breathe
sun the
allergies
recognize somehow
warmer. more
to hear
sounds kind sound
sounds
and and
bird
not?
try not sun
fuzzy kind of while
breathe for
longer
laughing and
acoustic
chests
hear inside the
are
pause we the
the
vibrations
making
warmer. more okay
the sun the outside outside
breathe
making
bird from
and
the changes until they've
already happened. or at least
they
happening. we wonder why
the clouds evaporating
the sun coming out, the air
getting so slightly warmer;
single row of bricks painted a
different color. who
through before how's and where
when whenever the
againagain the words repeatingly
as we notice a little
sticks to our ink, and we ask
again where meaning comes
from. a million coins being
thrown every instant, fields
of
terrifyingly
eye so intensely we have to
look away
flying
don't are repeating or not
somehow we care. that's that
more the and our blood skin
the music wind keeps
pushing trees, in see every
person and is the. in turning
away, being floorboards
transformed kinetic of dust wonder
resonant, how squirrels climb
cars if turn punchline
another
into, the fists paints and
violins ticking and best
pretending not to around
themselves while the room the on is
glowing and we can skin and
or not care
our the keeps keep instant
we are able to everything
around us for is doing, how the
just sort moves around
staring away, being by the
floorboards and transformed of
resonant, we wonder to be part of a
sentence another with some one
after and falling into, the,
paints and violins
our circles of ink
themselves and we the changing
every moment all around us,
paper and is glowing and feel
it
themselves or okay more human, is
laughing on blood is skin keeps
little bit, and in see it is,
what is the. away, being and
transformed into energy which, how
squirrels cars if the end a joke a
sentence clinging some rock glue
opinions and falling, the
screams, the keep doing our
notice we hear
every landing on this piece
the we can and moment
don't we don't themselves or
but. we
keeps, the keeps
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.
all these different
circumstances calling for different
responses, different ways
dealing and
smiling and we
because one of us smiled
these social gestures
amplifying
who don't know why they
thought the joke was funny when
many things going on
once, a different life story
in every single car in this
traffic jam, a different
time. but there isn't. the sky
seeming like just another
ceiling. emails
arriving and
from real people, all these
entire stories,
possibilities
incomprehensible tree, options after
options impossible to weigh. we
end
one we saw first and
seems as good as
least
instincts but we don't remember
where we
it's hard to speak
sometimes. we are frustrated with
ourselves
inconsistencies
allowing things to be just
they are and want
taking action,
leftandrighting with the leftandright
once again
were a different way or that
the coin had landed on
out who we are, and we aren't
quite
the energy to say anything,
too
behind each option which never
seem to go anywhere
positive, anywhere that doesn't
hurt
had happened in the first
place
anything actually did or
happen or if we had somehow just
of desperation and
particular, cycles going back and
forth but never quite
way, always surprising
somehow and adding to the
confusion and lack of any sense of
place, the
nowhere and the feeling
are getting nowhere.
quietingly, the
softmurmurs not
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
the same and change when
they need to change, or not
even need to stay the same or
instead want to stay the same or
want to change, or rather: it
just happens. it just
happens, and it keeps just
happening.
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
echoed until they sound like
dead trees, the sun pushing
the waves around a
through the
in the air just sort of
moving around.
stays and the
behind the eyelids,
underthere, again with questions
and we counterpoint
conversation and and the the care
seems a a we
again again, the eyes
under
things moving so slowly but the
clock seems seems as usual
with those clunks
counterpoint. and conversation
wayingsong a the and underthere, a,
to see when we are
lines remember that the
stick glowing and somehow we
lungs
breathe and we and we breathe and
we and we breathe we we to
ask questions how we sun we
remember
and lines and glowing
somehow becoming
forget to ask forget isn't it
these whose
whose we colors whose cue
colors names we can't remember
and lines and lines
names remember and so many
lines.. we we remember that
lines many.
of incense the stick smoke
breathe to. laughing laughing
ask
isn't it funny funny how isn't
it funny
shades of many
how did we get here? the
questions which keep making their
way
we never could learn from
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
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
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
and again and again
and, it does. the
from sound how sound notice
is
so pink but we don't. “can
it stay a, it does of damp
sound outside is why is maybe
we remember don't. why,
maybe we
like,
smell of damp sticks from
outside.
everything
don't. “can it once,
the corner of
empty except for the little
smile. the moments going and
that we can't take our eyes
off it, noticing just
inconsistent things are, how
and arbitrary the
differences seem between things and
people and ideas, how musical a
painting can sound
seems to dry.