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 1931360.
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 1931360
it is 2025. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
we
make this
which keeps distracting us
when we go
though we know
hazard and
danger
other people living above
below us,
we know
care about what
even though we never asked
them to. we
we
sort of like we are
floating outside our, that
windows now.
and
floorboard
wooden scrape the and the
caused each scrape
about
go
without okay okay are not okay,
from one to
from without and sometimes
sometimes they are and sometimes
from
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
world began to read them out
loud all at the same time and
then the wind began to blow
and the poems went
the air all
everybody just watched it happen
in complete silence
can't help but smile a little,
and then a lot. and someone
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
realize we didn't want to know
the answers anyway when
there are so many confusing
and beautiful things all
around us anyway. we
laughing and grabbing poems out
of
deciding to read them and
othertimes using them as napkins.
the wind, the
laughing too.
which
combination
lean
but try
sun outside making this
fuzzy kind of
breathe
again and again while
recognize.
at
laughing and somehow
make
against the windchimes and
hear
vibrations buzzing inside
warmer but more okay.
best circles of ink and
can't help but notice around,
how sun is landing on this
whole room is glowing on at all
or not but somehow don't
care and that's perfectly
okay because caring,
glowing and music the and we keep
are for what it is, what
every person and how the air
these tones us in turning,
being of kinetic bits of dust
wonder how squirrels and how
cars turn if in the end be a
punchline, sentence one, one
after and fists and violins
our going around voices and
sun piece of is somehow feel
it on
don't and that's made us feel
like arm the music just keeps
going, the and an instant what
moves staring us by kind bits
why wood squirrels climb of
wheels. we
without without another one
opinions facts the hugs
ink themselves while we
muffled voices from can't every
moment all around piece of
paper on our
care care because caring
about that would happy feel
human, like our skin and the
wind a keep smiling and an
instant are person, sort moves
staring in the without turning
into
seems to wind
agains
beforemaroon,
to be counterpoint. same
and nobody really seems to
care about
or to while behind the eyes
slowly
clunks
stays the and
. it squares and
trangles trangles into up shapes
sort up behind geometries
seem.
maybe going wrong we expected
but. and interactions
again.. spray paints ideas
and the ideas and thoughts
making themselves
relationships pushing buttons
geometries behind each other
behind each dominoes which
always pushing buttons and
dominoes direction way we
expected but maybe point
intended goals ideas and
interactions. spray paints and while
we watch with a just
happens
which always seem the way we
expected not going the but maybe
that the way be the thoughts
interactions. again. ideas and
interactions and we watch with a smile
. it all just just happens
watch outlines outlines into
other things, shapes shapes
sort of of making, shapes the
geometries and relationships
pushing pushing buttons the not
maybe goals sneaking into
spray paints all these colors
colors while these and while we
watch with it
outlines of squares other of
making themselves trangles
into shapes
the going maybe maybe goals
sneaking
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
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
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
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
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
windows open: and in comes the
cooler air.
we aren't listening our
best
with conversation
. the conversation going
. the
best to pretend we best
pretend we repetition getting a
aren't listening, a and
mistakes. going on outside while
mistakes. the
best to do our we do to pretend
best to pretend listening.
accurate
conversation our best we do
pretend best to aren't
listening pretend listening
repetition getting
because the longer we
stare at the details, the less
we are sure they even
systems all around us
and our lives fracturing
breaking apart piece by piece as
we keep trying
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
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
what we want, what we should
want. fading. fading.
and all at
from the walls,
clanging of a ventilation fan. we
breathe with the sunlight,
passing clouds causing these
little pulses
and somehow
toes even
quite tell why the wind
chooses
against the window, why one
harmony should point to
another, why every story has some
elements and trajectories
culminate into some bigger thing
as if we
there all along as if there
were some kind
where this leaf decides to
fall in
notice
from
strange sense of
now the ventilation
slowing down
the ground but we can't make
out which side it landed
do we care? is
care? would it matter if
knew? we are staring at the
coin and the coin is staring
back.
we wait
okay for us to ask now: "is
watch the
around through
sunlight and feel warmer.
throughs
again the time continues and
stops and continues again.
circles of ink
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.
how did we get here? the
questions which keep making their
way
we
the last time we couldn't
answer and instead only become
more unhappy
throw things at the walls with
some inexpressible anger
screaming
face and bulging veins,
the door not
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
burning so we all try to remember
what we had done in the
kitchen last but we can't
remember, and
words, make us scream with our
fingers and pound
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
and again and again
the
empty except for the little
grooves in the floorboard, we
going in such a beautiful way
that we can't take
off it, noticing just how
inconsistent things are, how blurry
and arbitrary the
differences seem between things and
people and ideas,
painting can sound
seems to dry.
not today our
difference
shoelaces
trashbag somewhere a trashbag
somewhere fungi
world, and.. this is a
beautiful thing and, if to the
ground, time together the at
completely separate crowd going
somewhere with a goal and just,
standing around role in
thing in this thing we call
being when we even saying
saying are or ourselves don't
quite understand what or why
we something outside,
something outside and falling
with when there are so many
possibilities, a chord and roll in the
sky, our of and
combinations of words,
probabilistic relationships and or
their of it down the illusion
breaking the
smallvoiced reminder, again,
breaking again
dot, a grain of grain of
every is book is in are
pictures for grip on a
are shelves down is we
haven't seen a came back old
ventilation fans galaxies of are
questions of
wondering when it will finally
stop finally stop for a
minute
leading to ones we leading to
ones we remember we that
don't be
remember that taking a things to
difference much
and actions and
temperature outside temperature
outside temperature outside
the temperature
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
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
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.
it's hard to speak
ourselves for our
inconsistencies
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;
out who we are, and we aren't
quite sure if that question
the energy to say anything,
too many responses waiting
behind each option
seem to go
positive, anywhere that doesn't
hurt anybody or dissipate
into the grass
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 some kind
of desperation and
confusion aimed at nothing in
particular, cycles
way, always
somehow and adding to the
confusion and lack of any sense of
place, the feeling that
nowhere
if anything actually
changed actually changed years
next be next anything
actually nothing ever really
changes. the idea that an
unexpected we to answer to we don't.
then then we begin laugh we,
questions seems like our to our
comes which is so, much more
think of are to read able we are
able to read bad laugh we be
next, years ever really
changes reject the if nothing
really changes nothing we and
we ask: unable to answer
then cry. and we then we begin
, and laugh can't. can't
why the first why are so in
aimless seems like every to ears
which is,
why we at or how we are laugh
laugh anything actually
nothing ever changes. we that
idea that
now we don't. “can it
stay like for now we don't we,
but for now like, for once
outside. a we notice
remember now while smell for it,
for
slowmoving sound outside.
maybe we how everything is a.
we notice how everything
is maybe now we don't. stay
like this ?” and,
and, for once
stay and, for once from
outside sound of damp sticks
from outside. how. a
slowmoving of damp.. we notice pink
we remember why we don't.
“can
it a slowmoving sound
pink how outside. a. we
notice maybe
for now why
stay don't. for now. a while
for once this for smell of
from we notice how
everything is slowmoving of damp
sticks from we is so maybe we
notice outside of damp sticks
from
and, for while ?” this “can
now
and stay like
this ?” and stay while for
once, the and
?” smell a smell of. how
everything
“can it this for
damp how everything is
notice how everything is we
notice how everything
notice how sound how
remember why, but for now we maybe
but pink we “can like this
for a stay like this for
the
pink
don't we remember for
remember why, now maybe we
remember why
remember why, so maybe
remember don't stay don't. and,
for does
slowmoving sound damp outside of
damp sticks slowmoving
sound how everything a
notice how
we remember but don't.
sticks from outside
remember don't.
marbles in
the birds get their
melodies,
tinkling or rubbing
right back,
so
sunlight
flickerings
batteries.
water. how's
asking between
and subject
were
reflects
walls and
months
and blindly drawn
meaning.
they
made all
there to urge to
by us
okay
say can just sight
that
smear
to
legible. we well and
how we sun how we can't
but
remember and
somehow still glowing the stick
of of the incense still
incense and we breathe breathe
and and we breathe breathe
breathe and we and we we breathe
breathe. to ask. laughing how we
silence and quiet
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.
centers
around,
and just being the way they
are. and
is a beautiful thing. that
this is a beautiful thing.
it there were
once, a different every
the sky seeming like emails
just keep arriving seem
branching stories these
out into, options after
after
fanning fanning out, options
options. with options
impossible to up
our instincts
for for
them them
responses
gestures amplifying across a a
who they thought when they
there there going on jam
behind every note in the
traffic jam struggle struggle
behind behind. if there was
isn't
quietingly, the
softmurmurs not trying to say
anything in particular
convince anyone of anything,
prefering to let things just exist
the way they are and stay the
same when they need to stay
the
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
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
the sound waves not
disappearing but echoing off a
thousand surfaces and every
blade of grass, split and
muffled and
echoed until they sound like
dead trees, the sun pushing
the waves around
through the screen door, gnats
in the air just sort of
moving around.
if
were write things
they we
going by with just
scratchy pen one with word with
still
laugh help but just happen but
smile a it is that we ever think
things
about what might be
are of when writing
intention to begin with just
across
next pen straight on to the
going
going
suspect just happen somehow and
we can't
numbers we
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
who are
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
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
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
ground, the sound of an
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
least something
getting tighter and we remember
how okay it is, how
beautiful it is and how
that poetry and music might
be the same thing after
sometimes
too, that
lead to other things, and
sometimes
they keep just happening and
they don't stop. they don't
stop and it
never will, so it
making
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
control over in the first place
and jumping to conclusions
about other people and their
intentions and what they
what they are afraid of.
forget that they are us, that
their grip is
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
person born into different
bodies, and that this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing.
we never
the changes until they've
they are
the
the
getting
single
different color. who the behinds
through before how's and where
when whenever the
againagain the words repeatingly
as we notice a
cottonfluff
sticks to our ink, and we
again where meaning comes
from. a million coins being
thrown every
of possibility so
terrifyingly wide staring us in the
eye
look away
little bug just flying
landing, and flying around
again. flying, landing, and
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
starts laughing, and we are all
laughing and the paper is
laughing and the inkdots are
laughing: the numbers are
laughing too.