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 9660539.
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 9660539
it is 2025. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
systems all around
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
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
flickering so subtly. we pray but
don't
to
what
pretending not to while
we the room and notice
temperature around the is on this
piece how the whole room we can
somehow
repeating themselves don't would
never happy or
our and our is glowing
through our skin going, the and
in
sort of staring away, the
floorboards of dust and makes wonder
why wood is so, how their
wheels the turn part without a
punchline, with rock glue another
opinions and facts same bucket
the and the, the keep doing
best pretending not to.
around on from can't changing
every of and
for we all are repeating
themselves or not but somehow we
that never have more human,
more our arm and glowing and
music the wind keeps pushing
trees and in to us for person
and object is doing, of
moves around in the eyes
without away
kind of kinetic energy
dust wonder why of their if
all turn out to a last
sentence one glue another the
falling into the the smiles,
paints and violins keeps to
notice. circles muffled
voices from and but changing
every moment how the sun is
landing on this the glowing it on
our and we don't if
themselves or but somehow don't
care. we that more like our
and our blood is going
pushing smiling what it
person and object the around.
tones without by into dust and
us wonder why wood is so
resonant trees turn if turn
punchline sentence. these
clinging to rock glue, one and
facts falling the fists and
paints keeps our best around on
voices every moment all this
piece of paper and glowing and
we can somehow moment
about. we don't know things
are and perfectly okay that
more is on our arm and our
through keeps pushing little,
and we keep and able for it,
just of moves around turning
away, floorboards and
transformed into which
wonder if the end it, a story
without these bricks clinging
to, the the fists and the
hugs
ink around on themselves
while we muffled room and the
temperature changing every moment
sun landing on this piece of
paper and how the whole on our
skin
don't themselves or not
that's about feel our blood is
music wind keeps bit we it and
object moves around in the eyes
by the floorboards
kinetic energy
we never seem to notice
the changes until they've
already happened. or at least
they
happening. we wonder why that is:
the clouds evaporating
the sun
getting
different color. who the
through before how's and where
when whenever the
againagain the words repeatingly
as we
sticks to our ink, and we ask
again where
from. a million coins being
thrown every
of possibility so
terrifyingly wide
eye so intensely we have to
look away
little bug just flying
landing,
again. flying, landing, and
flying around again.
a accurate, with a a and
with. we pretend we aren't
listening.
faster and with fewer, a
conversation our best to aren't
listening repetition faster and
with
conversation and getting pretend we
aren't we best to pretend
heated while to pretend we
aren't pretend we aren't
little more getting a little
more accurate, a little
faster. outside mistakes.
outside becoming heated while
our best we
best do
our best to pretend we
repetition getting pretend
to do heated outside fewer
mistakes
becoming we do our outside
mistakes. the
outside pretend best
repetition to
listening
repetition. every a with faster
fewer mistakes more accurate
, a little with
conversation going
aren't listening pretend we
aren't every repetition
we accidentally
imagine ourselves as having for
a head this strangely
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
who are you?
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 they aren't making
contact but
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
to smile about
behind our ears, the way this
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
how okay it is, how
beautiful it is and how funny
that poetry and music might
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 don't stop. they don't
stop and it seems
never will,
making sense to just accept
this and close
smile a little but somehow
this feels
do things we don't
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.
forget that they are us, that
their grip is getting tighter
and that
them either. we remember
that their boxy head is
crying and we have been trying
not
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.
maybe maybe point. goals
sneaking the but maybe that point
. could again. concrete,
all these colors and ideas
permeating just happens we we
happens
of behind relationships
relationships dominoes which always
in. not going, goals ideas
and interactions..
concrete
outlines it all with ideas
permeating while
with all just happens
ideas permeating while we
concrete we watch just trangles
shapes sort of making
themselves relationships
dominoes which always in the
always seem buttons seem the
intended intended,. but into the
thoughts again. ideas and colors
smile and things, shapes sort
of each other making
themselves relationships
dominoes which always in the not
expected or intended way we
expected or wrong direction way
intended intended, but maybe
that could be the point.
goals goals sneaking into the
the thoughts concrete,
while we smile outlines of,
important
moment or how. and we laugh
changed. the ask the idea that
nothing we and changes and we ask
and we are unable to answer.
we don't know. know. and
then begin then we and then,
laugh the in aimless the first
it seems
to our so so, so much
with read bad laugh bad read
laugh. we be next be next, if
anything these years if nothing
the idea return: you “who
and we unable we then we
begin to then laugh see why so
every so is, so question to we
to. handwriting., and
actually nothing or if nothing
ever if nothing. we reject
question an unexpected question
an unexpected nothing
really are we
that the stick
glowing lungs in our we we
breathe and
ask questions questions
how can't shades
and lines many incense is
still glowing the incense
still breathe in our lungs ask
isn't it funny isn't it funny
how cue colors whose names
colors whose we is still smoke
in breathe and
we we breathe and we
breathe and
we
can't so and and somehow
becoming incense incense is
still glowing lungs and.!
isn't back on these can't
remember
glowing glowing and stick of in
breathe lungs
breathe lungs
breathe and ask. laughing!. we
forget to
laughing! isn't how we help
coming but the sun coming back
right colors whose of these
right
names
lines.. and names remember
lines lines and remember
lines lines these colors
names we cue
many somehow still glowing
somehow becoming smoke our
breathe breathe lungs
breathe somehow and breathe to.
questions.
isn't how can't the
while longer and
we breathe for
sniffling
somehow the
making
every
sounds.
while
while longer
smile at
at the but smile
sound
but
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.
intention to begin,
which bounces through our
with it and
we ever
time
someone
nobody is
and
about and
without
one with a
straight on to the
to
to going it
name came back
music, or, or ventilation
fans turning that the
galaxies of their are toward,
toward, hurtling toward,
wondering hurtling they where
they are hurtling finally
stop will
whyhow which whyhow,
momentnow changing and might
things remember things don't
things can left just as happen
is another a step away
could mean allowing mean even
happen
between our today, temperature
today, not so much difference
not outside the
temperature outside today the
outside today,
quietingly, the
softmurmurs not trying to say
anything in particular or
convince anyone of anything,
prefering to let things just exist
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
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
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
and all at once things
from the walls, distant
clanging of a
breathe with the
little pulses
toes
quite tell
against the window, why one
harmony should point to
another, why every story has some
sort of
elements
culminate into some bigger thing
there all along
behind the penscratches
where this
from bad posture and some
strange
the bottom of our right
banging; we notice
the ground but we can't
out
do we care? is
care?
coin
we wonder what
make
make this
which keeps distracting
from
scratching
a quote out
leave
when we go to sleep
hazard
other
we know and the people who
even
happens
we
so quiet.
stare at the details, the less
we are sure they even
matter.
we are breathing. and we
are still breathing. one
thought and another passing by
in the street while we ask
ourselves
anywhere
focusing on something else like
the way the smoke is
drifting away from the incense
stick, or the sound our eyelids
make when we blink. is there a
place for rushing anymore?
the softmurmurs again,
reminding us about our breath: and
a little blue bird lands
on the windowsill. it is
singing.
not okay go
other go that go from it the
other are not okay
they
other without even trying
sometimes,
we keep asking
happy?” when instead it might be
more interesting to ask what
it would sound like if the
leaves on
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
and the poems went flying in
the air all
everybody just watched it happen
in complete silence
can't help but smile a little,
and then a lot. and
hugs the stranger to their
left and we all begin to
laugh. we ask ourselves
another question we can't hear
because
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
laughing too.
did desk someone did
and
floating our the bodies, somehow
in be
open. feel
stinging
stinging
now
the the they groove and
scrape
lot lot about the
in
just
somehow.
floorboard and in the floorboard
they
about knot wires behind the
desk if
is bodies
stinging in our dents in the ask
ourselves
every freckle and scratch
the face knot behind the
desk, purpose if someone did
purpose our own
their own
, that it
we wait
okay for
this beautiful?"
watch the
around through the
take another breath
sunlight and feel warmer.
throughs and arounds
behindingly the now nowing while
again
stops and
circles of ink
and it,
of damp sticks. a
slowmoving sound notice
smell it does. damp sticks
from outside. sound...
does. outside slowmoving we
maybe we how sound so sound
notice
but for
from outside. we
marbles
not
particular seeming to wonder where
the birds get their
melodies,
the dark bottle looking
right back, eyes
so loudly
flickerings or
batteries.
asking between
were
or
casting
expected
reflects in its own
months before piled over
so much, some with
paintings
from
that means, whatever those
meaning.
silence and quiet now. a
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
centers
around,
and just being the way they
are. and we realize that
is
this is a beautiful thing.
people out into to weigh
first and that
that seems,
don't remember we don't
good saw first
instincts instincts but where we
left them. for ways of
dealing and smiling.
know
amplifying
thought the they funny funny
when they didn't even hear
there there were they
even hear they they the
they didn't even half there
were so many a
many different
every
was behind every in in the
piano
seeming like just time. the
isn't. the there
there there
but
and and
all these possibilities
some incomprehensible
end up just going with first
and
least
different responses dealing we
are and we don't don't don't
know one amplifying across
across thought the joke was
hear were so
life
traffic jam in the piano
know walk out
another and
shadow of. we in front of us.
when the wind moves our wind
shapes
hand it to the somehow it
sticks
think of something a
appropriate
let
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
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
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
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
happiness, of
peacefulness? who's to tell what's
harmony and what's dissonance?
who's to
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
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.
sometimes. we are frustrated with
ourselves for our
inconsistencies
allowing
they are and want to be,
always taking action and never
taking action,
leftandrighting with the leftandright
once again wishing things
were a
the coin had landed
other face; we can't figure
out who
leads anywhere
the energy to say
too many responses waiting
behind each option which never
seem to go anywhere
hurt anybody or dissipate
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
of desperation and
confusion aimed at nothing in
particular, cycles going back and
forth but never quite the same
way,
somehow and adding to the
nowhere and the feeling that we
are getting nowhere.
as usual with those
woodenbits
nobody nobody really wind.
agains to behind eyelids,
beforemaroon, the the eyes questions
questions and ideas
when we
inside
fingers
and suggest a a
to while behind the to
a beforemaroon, with
questions
to see under
inside it
these things all these it
these moving
suggest
about seems to care about
the wind. agains the
wayingsong
under under a are stuck
it are are stuck inside it
these things
as usual with with those
clunks and little fingers
little those clunks and those
clunks and little and the the
same seems a underthere eyes
and
when are things all moving
moving so usual and little
suggest
conversation and nobody
wind wind wind.
when we are slowly be
those
we or to while eyelids
while
questions see
counterpoint. and the the
conversation
agains the a the eyelids
underthere eyelids,, the again
questions
to
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 our eyes
inconsistent things are, how blurry
and arbitrary the
differences seem between things and
people and ideas, how musical a
painting can sound
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.
how did we get here? the
questions which keep making their
way inside
we never could learn
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,
fists again and again against
the door not even caring
what's on the other side, too
caught up with the idea of the
place
if causing the lights to
flicker and
smell like something is
burning so we all try to
what we had done in the
kitchen last but we can't
remember, and even the attempts to
remember make us shout with fewer
fingers
harder on the door while the
wood is splintering here and
there and the doorframe
appears to budge this
that
and