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
from outside. a slowmoving
sound. we notice how
everything is
remember why, but for now
don't. “can it stay like this
for a while?” and, for once,
it
we
the changes until they've
already happened.
they are well into
happening. we wonder why that is:
the clouds
the sun coming out,
getting
single row of bricks painted a
different
through before how's and where
when whenever the
againagain the
as
cottonfluff drifting toward us. it
sticks
again
from.
thrown every instant, fields
of
terrifyingly wide staring us in the
eye so intensely
look away
little bug just flying
landing, and
again. flying, landing, and
flying around again.
and
are so quiet, a tiny hiss
clanging of a ventilation fan. we
breathe with the
passing clouds causing these
little
and somehow we feel
toes even
quite
chooses the
against the window, why one
harmony should point
elements and trajectories
culminate into
as if we had been heading
there all along as
were some kind of purpose
where
fall in this rotting pile
from bad posture and some
strange sense of
the
now
slowing down into
banging;
out which side it landed on.
do we
care? would
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?"
window creaking under winds,
some oil spilled in a parking
lot.
who's before and after or some
some behind throughingly, a
manual for writers of research
papers about electrical
engineering and game theory,
complex analysis and early
marxist painting; the
walls of this place have
shoulders that are
sagging, somewhere in these
pages 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
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 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
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
the noise is still noise yet
somehow wider, more sideways
and spinningly and
uppingly and backwardly, more
harsh and out of sync, now neon
colorlines and batteries, strange
gaps in the spiral
patterns but something about
them which makes us feel the
walls are moving further away
and the room is becoming
smaller, that one moment is
another and the second hand is
somehow different this time
around. we cannot help but go to
sleep again, this time with a
strange smile and already
looking forward to coffee. this
time with socks and a thicker
blanket. this time with the
cooler air.
we wait for a
and wonder if it would be
okay for us to ask now:
this beautiful?"
if nobody noticed and we
around through the leaves. we
take
sunlight and feel warmer.
throughs and arounds
behindingly the now nowing while
stops and continues again.
circles
marbles in a glass
particular seeming to wonder
the birds get
melodies,
the dark bottle looking
right back,
sunlight
asking between
and subject
or something or something
or anothersong
thismomentingly
casting shadows longer than
expected
walls
surface, papers scattered from
months before piled
other,
so much, some with colors
and blindly
paintings
from
laser
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 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
narrow, pressing against the
sides of
much significance to us now
when the lights are
flickering so subtly. we pray but
don't know who we are praying
to
what we want, what
want.
quietingly, the
anything in particular or
convince anyone of
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
every
fuzzy grass
where
thisthat thisthat
second
can't
laughing and somehow
laughing
chests
the corner of the room
empty except for the little
grooves in the floorboard, we
going in such a beautiful way
that we can't take our eyes
off it, noticing just
inconsistent things are, how blurry
and arbitrary the
differences seem between things and
people
painting can sound
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
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
answer and instead only become
more unhappy and began
throw things at the walls with
some inexpressible anger
screaming and shouting with a
face and bulging veins,
what's on the other side, too
caught up with the idea of the
door being there in the
place
if causing the lights to
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
words, make us scream with our
fingers and pound harder and
harder on the door while the
wood is splintering here and
there
appears to budge this time or
that
and again and again
without any, just to
scratchy pen
through our ear
that
can't help
and
numbers and happening sound
as we stop
why we
without any particular sense
intention to begin one
our
smile a is ever
about
(we if they (we
they books and
place of
thing out
sense of intention to with
lines one
going with a scratchy pen and
we just
happen somehow
absurd
the
someone (we write things
stop they listened
stop and
when
without
to
lines, just sense
by
just just a
is
things
things the (we
place
how absurd
absurd
think about of
happening the might
were same
worrying about
any sense of with
by one
through our
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
all just of squares and
trangles outlines sort behind
each other
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
the we
are they, and sometimes
happens we
without
that to sometimes things are
are
are, and from one
sometimes not we
it's hard to speak
sometimes. we are frustrated with
ourselves for our
inconsistencies
allowing things to be just the way
they are and want to be,
always taking
taking action,
leftandrighting with the leftandright
once again wishing things
the coin had landed on the
other face; we can't figure
out who we are,
quite sure if that question
leads anywhere
the energy to say anything,
too many responses waiting
behind each option which never
seem to go anywhere
hurt anybody or dissipate
into the grass as if nothing
had happened in the first
place and we begin to
anything actually did or
happen
thought it all up out of some kind
of desperation and
confusion aimed
particular, cycles
forth
somehow and adding to the
confusion and lack of any
place, the feeling that we are
nowhere and the feeling that 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 accidentally
a head this strangely
shaped box or a bird feeder with
a triangular roof or
something similar and
sitting in the front passenger
seat of an old car and someone
we care a lot about asks,
who are you?
think for a minute, and then
another. we
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
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,
everything and wanting to want
nothing, to feel everything and
to feel nothing, or at
getting tighter and we remember
how okay
beautiful it is and
that
be the same
sometimes and being naked is okay
too, that sometimes
lead to other things, and
sometimes they don't, and
sometimes things just happen and
they keep
they don't stop. they don't
stop and it seems like they
never will, so it starts
making sense to just
this
smile a little but somehow
this feels impossible.
get frustrated
do things we don't want
do, blaming
for
control over in the first place
and jumping to conclusions
and making assumptions
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 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
beautiful thing. this is
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
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.
we keep asking
questions like “will
happy?” when instead it might be
more interesting to
it would sound
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
in complete silence
can't help
and then a lot. and someone
hugs the stranger to their
left and we all begin to
laugh. we ask
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 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
someone it it
just
our
incense is
warm now and now.
freckle and
just sort of these things
sort of of we close a a moment
like bodies somehow outside
and sensation in in our
hands
came from
paint
scratch
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
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
listening.
a little faster and
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
trees of wonder if will
so,
to read. handwriting
laugh
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
around where's or why's while
leftandright
wooden creak. a scratch. all
centers
around, things just happening
and
are. and we realize that this
is a beautiful thing. that
this is a beautiful thing.
maybe something some
need
patterns
patterns come
anything. or maybe just
really
isn't
shadow notice wind shapes
the ink and
hand somehow it all sticks
well. smudges
moment
airplanes and sun
come
, would matter
leaves all be
urge grow way that these grid
now know they
quietly understood that
sometimes it's be
be that and don't know
of
which
doesn't
shadow
it we
smudges
word a
misread a
wouldn't
different the idea
we
anything could
could
the
explain pointing toward the
place how all motions
and
these, events going and back
and little
these little events going
back and forth without
leaving
figure out where
whether we or if
maybe
there
could really to grow
all these different
circumstances calling for different
responses, different ways
smiling and we don't know why
because one of us smiled first?
these social
amplifying
who don't know why they
thought the joke was funny when
they didn't even hear half of
it because there
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
ceiling. emails just keep
arriving and keep
none of them ever seem to be
from real people, all these
situations branching out into
entire stories,
possibilities fanning out into some
incomprehensible tree, options after
options impossible to weigh. we
end up just going with the
one we saw
seems as good
least
instincts but we don't remember
where we left them.
we it funny we we funny how
we can't can't
sun sun starts back these
colors on cue
coming on cue colors we shades
of these colors lines so
many lines
the stick is still glowing
breathe
forget to ask we we forget to ask
isn't it funny how
help but can't help but
colors whose names we remember
and lines
so many stick is stick
remember that the
forget funny how
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
somehow becoming and
becoming
becoming smoke in our lungs
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
can't lines
stick incense is in our lungs
somehow becoming smoke in our
our becoming. and and we
breathe and we breathe ask.
laughing! help but smile when
help but can't help but the
sun back
can't remember
remember these colors of these
these colors whose of of
incense is is
funny isn't but it laughing it
funny how we
because
stare at the details, the less
we are sure they
matter.
make us happy, what would
make this
scratching pens
a quote out
when
hazard
other people
below us, and all
we know and the people who
care about what
them to. we
should matter
we care.
so
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
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 are a pale blue dot, a
to while and how
ideas how to it
all so slowly be as usual and
little and the conversation
stays the same and nobody same
and really
the be working as usual with
as with those
and and woodenbits
the conversation stays
stays the same and nobody
really seems
eyelids,
again
we are
working with those
we suggest
. and the counterpoint
conversation same and nobody really
seems to about wayingsong the
eyes
it clock seems to be clunks
and little woodenbits
nobody