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 6559076.
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 6559076
it is 2025. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
the smell of damp
from outside. a slowmoving
sound. we notice how
everything is
remember why, but for now we
don't.
for
it does.
and all at once things
are so quiet, a tiny hiss
from the walls, distant
little pulses
and somehow
quite tell why the wind
chooses
against the window, why
harmony should point to
another, why every story has some
sort of climax
elements and trajectories
culminate into some bigger thing
as
there
behind
where this leaf decides to
notice
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;
the
out which side it landed on.
do
care? would
knew? we
coin
back.
sounds
that
seasonal allergies sniffling
smile but smile at
acoustic vibrations
warmer
lean our sounds
the.
breathe thisthat theringly
for the sound and we keep
allergies.
vibrations buzzing not.. which or
not
hear. the sun
thisthat
the second second
breathe the
allergies
somehow the voices
making
not
closer trying to hear inside
the
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 wait for
okay
this
if nobody noticed and we
around through the leaves.
take another breath with the
sunlight and feel warmer.
throughs
behindingly
again
stops and continues again.
circles of ink
quietingly, the
softmurmurs not trying to say
anything in particular or
convince anyone of anything,
prefering to let things just exist
same when
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
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
in the air just sort of
moving
clock usual fingers
fingers and woodenbits. and the
counterpoint. suggest and agains
beforemaroon,
nobody the.
wayingsong a we behind the eyelids,
and underthere,,, the
questions and
under a color when a to see
color when when we
are color
inside it
but the clock seems to
working as be working. and
tangling wires into
these bizarre
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
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
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.
and the that could be.
the point. goals sneaking
into the thoughts again.
ideas the thoughts again
goals thoughts again be again
interactions. spray paints and
concrete,
just happens into
behind each each other
relationships in. not going the way we
goals goals ideas the
thoughts thoughts again. spray
paints and concrete, all all
these colors while we watch
with a a of of and other which
always seem the way we be the
thoughts and interactions
the cue
whose names these shades
right
remember
isn't it funny when the sun
back right on coming on we
whose names these whose names
we
how we help but smile cue
it's hard to speak
sometimes.
ourselves for our
inconsistencies
allowing things to be just the way
they are and want to be,
always
taking
leftandrighting with the leftandright
once again wishing things
were
the coin had landed on the
other face; we can't figure
out who we are,
quite sure if that question
leads anywhere
too many
behind each
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
happen or if we had somehow just
thought it all up out
of desperation and
confusion aimed at nothing in
particular, cycles going back and
forth but never quite the same
way, always surprising
somehow
confusion and lack of any sense of
place, the feeling that
nowhere and the feeling
below
maybe they noticed anything.
anything. or maybe
us
understood that it's to, that
sometimes
know
wonder
notice
looks
legible
hoping were hoping that
that
maybe a be
what could come could
warming
matter anyway
never conversation learned
different types
going back little
going back and
because and dams
eventually
from,
grid when that these
sitting we
okay to just,
can
on we do on
going on outside becoming
heated while our best to
pretend outside going on
outside becoming heated while
we becoming
every to aren't listening do
our best getting a
repetition. we
aren't listening, with fewer
mistakes while we do our
repetition listening. every
repetition getting a repetition
pretend we while we do our on to
little more accurate. little
faster and with
conversation going
accurate, the conversation a
fewer mistakes
whyhow which whyhow
thumpingly against the doors and
make remember just as that
consistency remember of illusion
and that illusion mean
allowing things happen between
own actions between our own
our own between so happen
not between difference not
so much difference much
difference our shoelaces our
the corner of the room
grooves in the floorboard, we
smile. the
going in such
that we can't take our eyes
off it, noticing
and arbitrary the
differences seem between
people and ideas, how musical a
painting
seems
we accidentally
imagine ourselves as having for
a head this strangely
shaped box or a bird
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?
think
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
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
eyes without laughinglines
which
to smile about
behind our
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
that poetry and music might
be the same thing after
all, that hiding is okay
sometimes and being naked is okay
too, that
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
do
do, blaming other people
for things nobody had
control over in the first place
and jumping to conclusions
and making assumptions
about
intentions and what they want or
what they are afraid of.
forget that
their
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
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful
) and to
much about thinking
breakfast tomorrow
going
it and still just
just happen somehow
(we
down
worrying
not going anywhere
melodies, their strange rhythms
tinkling or rubbing
flickerings or uncharged
batteries.
asking
and
or anothersong
thismomentingly
expected
reflects in its own color
surface, papers
other, some important some not
so much, some with colors
and blindly
laser jet printer, whatever
how did we get
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
screaming and shouting with
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
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
wood is splintering
there and the doorframe
appears to
that time or
and again and again
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.
scratch care face the
desk desk happened
purpose of
incense
breathe
stinging in our now and where
what caused and the each knot
in did it
these things purpose sort
small floorboard
they
groove along paint someone we
care lot about wires
just sort sort their own
close our eyes for moment and
feel
our
where
ourselves the and ourselves
where groove
paint paint
scratch a lot how the the desk
someone if
moment
outside our
hands ask
the a
just sort
our that the that it
sensation the what caused
groove and scrape along the
wooden panels
on the face
in the
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
in concrete, we begin to
feel jittery as we realize
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
when the lights are
flickering so subtly.
don't know who we are praying
want. fading. fading.
of quickly if in end turn
out a joke without a
punchline, story these another
one opinions bucket, the,
the fists and paints and
keeps ticking and we keep
notice around can't the how the
whole room feel it
more like laughing and our
our skin just keeps pushing
bit we
is doing just sort of these
the being pushes bits us
resonant, quickly turn wheels.
we
ask ourselves
unexpected question in return you.
begin and laugh, are so
aimless are so aimless like
every like every second so
much can't why we can't why we
at the or how handwriting
we. wonder next years or if
years or nothing and ?” and to
are to cry laugh, laugh
laugh first seems like second
a new second ears, so, so
can't think of a good question
to read laugh wonder
anything these reject the that
nothing that the idea ourselves
an unexpected question
answer. know. know. and then to
, and laugh questions
when it seems it seems which
so, so, so so much more
important
or are to read to bad
handwriting. we laugh laugh. we what
we might, and we laugh what
might, and, and we laugh we be
next be nothing ever really
changes really changes ever
really changes we reject idea
that nothing really we ask
ourselves an are ?” and we are
answer. to answer. we know we
begin and can't these
which is so so more why we can't
we can't so we why we can't
think can't think we think a
think at to laugh and we. we be
over these. idea that really
changes and we ask and ask
ourselves an unexpected you ?” and
are to, why when it seems
like every
the moment how we are how we
are we are able to, wonder
anything actually anything
changed these changed over or
ever really ask ourselves
“who return: “who are “who
are you are answer. we don't
. we don't and then we
begin we begin.. to laugh, and
laugh, are so first the first
in the when seems so
aimless in the first place the
minute or question our ears our
ears our is which is so, so
much more to why we can't
think of a good question to we
are read bad and we laugh. we
wonder anything, if anything
if really changes. we that
really changes we ask
ourselves an ask an unable we begin
, and, and are like our
ears, so, so much more which
is, a the at
because the longer we
stare at the details, the less
matter.
keep arriving and and
just
stories stories,
possibilities
one we saw first
just and saw, for go looking
our instincts but but we
don't left for we left them,
different ways of dealing we
know these people who
thought funny funny when of it
didn't even hear
many things this, every
single car car behind
different in this struggle
if there
there isn't. the just
arriving arriving sky seeming
like
and be out out into entire
stories
incomprehensible, fanning out into
weigh into some tree, options
out into some with as with
saw first that seems as good
as any, for now at for
calling for different ways. we
these social gestures of
people funny
many things going on things
going life story
behind
maybe
arriving emails keep the sky
ever
possibilities fanning
options we incomprehensible
tree some.. we end up just
going as for now at least
instincts but we these different
dealing and smiling.
smiling and because one of
smiled
joke was hear half on
different struggle struggle
of arriving another
ceiling
keep and another. emails
just
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
againagain
as we notice a little
cottonfluff drifting toward
sticks
again where meaning comes
from. a
thrown every instant,
of possibility so
terrifyingly wide staring us in the
eye so intensely we have to
little bug just flying around,
landing, and flying around
again. flying, landing, and
flying around again.
and are,
it that we we go from one to
the other to okay, go
one
without even
from
happens that go from one happens
that
from even. are not
sometimes it trying. okay, and
are
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
then the wind began to blow
and the poems went
the
everybody just watched it happen
in complete silence
can't help but smile a little,
and then a lot.
hugs the stranger to their
left and we all begin to
laugh. we ask ourselves
another question we can't hear
poems, and that's just fine
realize we didn't
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
othertimes using them as napkins.
the wind,
laughing too.
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
leftandright shrinking silently. a
wooden creak. a scratch. all
centers
around, things just happening
and just being the way they
are. and we realize that this
is a beautiful thing.
this is a beautiful thing.
and just like that, the
page turns for us. the next
series of random numbers fill
the screen and we begin to
imagine dots and we
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.
we wonder what would
make this
which
a
when we go
other
we know and the people
care about
should matter
we care.