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 2507039.
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 2507039
it is 2025. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
it's hard to speak
sometimes. we are frustrated with
ourselves for our
inconsistencies once at peace and
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; we can't figure
out who we are, and we aren't
quite sure if that question
leads anywhere hard to find
the energy to say anything,
too many responses waiting
behind each option which never
seem to go anywhere
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 actually did or does
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 going back and
forth but never quite the same
way, always surprising
somehow and adding to the
confusion and lack of any sense of
place, the feeling that we are
nowhere and the feeling that we
are getting nowhere.
little faster and with
fewer, a repetition getting
and the faster and with
fewer, a conversation going
on conversation going on
heated do we. our while
listening. our best getting.
every repetition listening.
every best to aren't
listening do our best to pretend
best we aren't every
repetition our conversation going
on heated while we do going
and with fewer mistakes
while we do our best to aren't
listening. we aren't every
listening. a little faster and
little every little faster and
with little faster and with
fewer mistakes. the
conversation going on outside
becoming we best we aren't
listening. every repetition
listening. every a little pretend
every do our conversation
going on outside going and
with fewer mistakes. the
fewer accurate, a little
faster , a repetition our best
to pretend best listening
. every more mistakes.
the faster . we
of freckle and face we
care about the , care the face
face about, how lot we care
lot about, how each the if
things we feel like we are
floating floating outside
outside bodies, that the
outside our in our, might might
be warm, that it be warm
enough outside be, might be
sensation we small dents in the
came from each where they
from groove the wooden on lot
about each knot in it on their
for a floating , that
outside bodies, outside like,
that the incense our bodies
that foreheads, that feel we
breathe
because the longer we
stare at the details, the less
we are sure they even
matter.
we listen to the sounds
of all these people we've
never met laughter and
conversation, pointing toward their
destination as they explain to each
other how they learned about
the place. so many
different types of hats. all these
little motions, events going
back and forth without
leaving any sort of permanent
mark because even roads and
dams and enormous statues
collapse and fade eventually,
and things just do what they
do what they always were
going to do anyway. we try to
figure out where the patterns
in a cloud of leaves come
from, whether we made it all up
or if maybe something
could really be there, that
maybe the leaves decided or
felt some need or urge to grow
in such a way that these
grid patterns come up when we
look at the branches from
below. and now someone we know
comes walking by our sitting
place, but we don't look up so
they don't see us so they
don't say anything. or maybe
they noticed us looking away
and quietly understood
that sometimes it's okay to
just not say anything, that
sometimes we can just be
ourselves. we don't know, really.
and they walk out of sight.
and another thing happens
which doesn't matter, and we
glance at the clock and wonder
if it's eight yet, and it
isn't now we notice that the
sun is behind us, and that
our shadow is in front of us.
we notice how strange our
hair looks when the wind
moves it around into
different shapes. we try to smear
the ink and lead with our
hand but somehow it all
sticks to the paper so well and
remains perfectly legible. we
were hoping that the smudges
might make us somehow misread
a word or note or two and
help us think of something we
wouldn't have otherwise, but
maybe a different technique
or execution would be
better, more appropriate. we
question the idea of relevancy
for a moment, and let it go.
we close our eyes and just
listen to the wind and
airplanes and feel the sun warming
our legs. we wonder what
could come from this just
about anything, really we
wonder if anything could or
couldn't prepare us for it, and if
it would matter anyway
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 time and
then the wind began to blow
and the poems went flying in
the air all around and
everybody just watched it happen
in complete silence we
can't help but smile a little,
and then a lot. and someone
hugs the stranger to their
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 we
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.
we laugh. we wonder or if
nothing ever nothing or if
nothing ever really ever really
reject the really changes and
we return are you ?” we are
we are we are know. we laugh
, and, and these why the
first place when place when a
new so new so, so, so
important like at the of a question
to begin we are able to read
bad laugh laugh next, if
actually if anything these idea
the idea that nothing
really “who are you ?” and you ?”
and we are to answer we begin
to cry laugh, and these are
so. can't we these
questions why these so the aimless
in the first place the
first in a to our ears so, so,
that sound don't but
smile at laughing people
laughing make this sort of
harmony harmony against all all
these all these more
any of we are writing
without any sense across by one
with a scratchy pen and with
and going a scratchy pen
word which going straight
which our ear just with and
still it. happen somehow and
but just happen somehow we
can't help little and we laugh
at it like and what two the
were sound like if someone
were to listen (we if to down
scheduling might be breakfast
worrying we cross one in place of
particular going by one to and going
straight on to ear just going with
we can't help but smile a is
that think things and days of
the week, the same, what two
happening at the same time listen
(we nobody is ) and if to so )
about what might breakfast
tomorrow another we are writing
without any just going across
lines one by with lines one by
one with a scratchy to the
next word which bounces our
still just going it. we help
but smile and then ever even
things like numbers and days of
, what if someone they is )
and trying to stop worrying
so about scheduling and
books for breakfast or of
another of by one with pen
straight on to the next bounces
ear and still going with it
and just we suspect help it
is that even about things
the happening someone ) and
were so. we stop worrying
much and books (not worrying
us smiled first? across
a know why was didn't when
half things going once,
there, in every story in every
single in single car, every
there in the piano jam a
different note in the time just
another another ceiling. keep
arriving seeming and seem be keep
arriving arriving and none
people, into branching out
into entire out into options
after going with. we saw first
first and and that, for for now
at that seems seems as good
for at that seems as good we
don't
the around keep smiling
and we everything around us
for, and how the air sort of
moves. these tones eyes
without turning the
floorboards some which pushes bits
of wood is so resonant of
wonder if in out to a joke
without a without a
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?" some glass
window creaking under winds,
some oil spilled in a parking
lot. how again the why's and
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 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 particles trapped in
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? hard to
see the picture from a
pixel, hard to find the poem
through a word a letter an inkdot
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: we ask each other where
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 not
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 wait for a few minutes
and wonder if it would be
okay for us to ask now: "is
this beautiful?" we wonder
if nobody noticed and we
watch the air just sort of move
around through the leaves. we
take another breath with the
sunlight and feel warmer.
throughs and arounds
behindingly the now nowing while
again the time continues and
stops and continues again.
circles of ink we close our eyes.
that,, it that we trying
and and sometimes things
are not okay, and okay, and
sometimes sometimes they it we go
even trying okay , they the
other without even trying.
and sometimes they and
sometimes it happens that we go
that, and sometimes
sometimes, and okay ,, and
sometimes from one go from one to
the other without even
trying, and sometimes , not and
from are are they we go from
one to the and sometimes are
, it from one to to the are
not and sometimes and
sometimes to sometimes things
happens happens that we without
. and sometimes without
even trying. and things and,
and sometimes it happens
are from without the
without are not okay , and things
it happens that that and
sometimes things are are not okay
are, happens that we
happens that one to the other
without and and other without
even and, and and okay, and it
happens sometimes it happens
other without even trying
okay are not
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 fading in
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 it's
beautiful enough and it's
surprising enough and that itself
may be the most beautiful
and surprising thing of all
at the moment.
the corner of the room
empty except for the little
grooves in the floorboard, we
smile. the moments going and
going in such a beautiful way
that we can't take our eyes
off it, noticing just how
inconsistent things are, how blurry
and arbitrary the
differences seem between things and
people and ideas, how musical a
painting can sound the ink never
seems to dry.
silence and quiet now. a
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. all
centers things happening all
around, things just happening
and just being the way they
are. and we realize that this
is a beautiful thing. that
this is a beautiful thing.
coming back right on cue
shades of these lines can't
remember lines and lines so many
lines. we remember stick of
still glowing becoming smoke
in somehow the and stick of
many lines. many stick
incense is becoming smoke and we
breathe we breathe breathe. we
forget to ask laughing! forget
to! help when help but
smile smile when the the sun
starts help smile sun starts
coming back sun starts coming
back right on cue right on
shades cue shades sun back
right on cue right on whose
names on cue colors whose
whose names we can't remember
we
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 couldn't
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 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 another why and another
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 on the door while the
wood is splintering here and
there and the doorframe
appears to budge this time or
that time or this time again
and again and again
quietingly, the
softmurmurs not trying to say
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 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.
we accidentally
imagine ourselves as having for
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 an old car and someone
we care a lot about asks,
who are you? and we
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 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 say so much,
eyes without laughinglines
which always find new things
to smile about an itch
behind our ears, the way this
piece of paper falls on the
ground, the sound of an overhead
lamp switching on laughing
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 the grip
getting tighter and we remember
how okay it is, how
beautiful it is and how funny 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 sometimes things
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 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 jumping to conclusions
and making assumptions
about other people and their
intentions and what they want or
what they are afraid of. we
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 is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing.
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
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
narrow, pressing against the
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 who we are praying for,
what we want, what we should
want. fading. fading.
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.
we or the to while we or
wayingsong to while underthere, a a
beforemaroon, a beforemaroon, the a
beforemaroon , and ideas see under a
see color when are it it
these things all all moving so
slowly be working usual the
conversation stays the same and
nobody same and seems to care
the wayingsong a the
eyelids, and beforemaroon
questions and ideas questions see
under a color it it it clock but
working as with those clunks
clunks and little fingers and
counterpoint the the the
conversation stays the the same and
seems care the wind. agains we
or to while we or while
behind the to and the eyes again
how to how inside the clock
seems to be working usual with
those clunks
and all at once things
are so quiet, a tiny hiss
from the walls, distant
clanging of a ventilation fan. we
breathe with the sunlight,
passing clouds causing these
little pulses in the sunglow
and somehow we feel it in our
toes even though we can't
quite tell why the wind
chooses the pitches it sings
against the window, why one
harmony should point to
another, why every story has some
sort of climax where
elements and trajectories
culminate into some bigger thing
as if we had been heading
there all along as if there
were some kind of purpose
behind the penscratches or
where this leaf decides to
fall in this rotting pile we
notice a pain in our lower back
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; we notice a coin lying on
the ground but we can't make
out which side it landed on.
do we care? is it good to
care? would it matter if we
knew? we are staring at the
coin and the coin is staring
back.
pushing the geometries
behind each pushing buttons
always seem to fall in the wrong
direction. not maybe that point
the ideas and paints ideas
these paints and we outlines
of into behind sort of
making themselves geometries
and relationships pushing
always the wrong seem going
maybe that. intended
intended, but maybe into ideas
and the thoughts again.
again. ideas paints and
colors and colors while we all
outlines of other sort up behind
of making themselves up
into other sort other things
, other relationships
pushing relationships pushing
buttons always not not going the
way we be, but maybe that
could into the thoughts goals
sneaking into the point. goals
sneaking into the thoughts again
interactions.., while smile just
while we smile happens smile.
it all outlines of squares
and things, shapes sort
sort behind each other
relationships pushing buttons and
dominoes which always seem to
fall dominoes dominoes
direction. which fall in the way
intended the but maybe that
sneaking into the the point or
intended, but not maybe that the
thoughts again. spray into the
point ideas and interactions
. spray ideas permeating
while we watch with happens
watch with a squares and
trangles into making themselves
up behind each other,,
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 if we should instead be
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.
the sun's belly still
rising and falling with every
breath as thinks about thinks
about wooden cabinets and why
they are shaped why they are
many poem or a everyday seems
it seems everyday color is
new in of voice and
combinations of and relationships
imitating make and toes emptiness
or emptiness
soullessness of that way. the
illusion breaking illusion
reminder that, a grain where a
library where every book
library place book is in have
names colors; we are we the
down is librarian we whose we
had laughed until an on
remember that asking questions
of their own, wondering
where they are hurtling
toward, wondering when it will
wondering toward, wondering a,
the and leading where of
some that don't be that, that
things can, that things can
left just we remember sort of
and that things to much
difference and the own actions and
the so much and our, on
untied, on up
don't stay for now we it
once, a, a, it does. the. we a
maybe now we don't but for now
like ?” and, for this while ?”
and it this does. sound
notice how pink for don't. “can
it stay for a and stay once
this for ?” and, and. the damp
notice how so notice how
everything is now we don't. “can,
but. “can it, this for a
while ?” does smell of damp
sticks. a
we never seem to notice
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 the behinds
through before how's and where
when whenever the
againagain the words repeatingly
as we notice a little
cottonfluff drifting toward us. it
sticks to our ink, and we ask
again where meaning comes
from. a million coins being
thrown every instant, fields
of possibility so
terrifyingly wide staring us in the
eye so intensely we have to
look away and we notice this
little bug just flying around,
landing, and flying around
again. flying, landing, and
flying around again.
expected the desk
surface, piled over each ,
important some not so much some
printer , whatever means,
whatever those meaning anywhere
get their melodies, their
strange rhythms or , eyes
glimmering or fluorescent water
colorshades were important or
something , expected its own color
onto the , scattered from,
some important some not
blindly from , a glass not where
the birds get strange
rhythms tinkling or right so the
or this subject matter or
or shadows longer than
expected in nearby desk surface
scattered from piled other,
paintings some printed out from an
jet printer, whatever,
going anywhere wonder where
the birds strange rhythms
tinkling or rubbing back
flickerings or . the different?
asking between colorshades
subject matter like were
important an shadows longer than
expected in surface before piled
over some and some printed an
old and white laser, those
going anywhere in particular
their strange rhythms
tinkling,
we wonder what would
make us happy, what would
make this headache go away
which keeps distracting us
from everything going on the
scratching pens and observations,
a quote out of context we
leave the incense burning
when we go to sleep even
though we know it's a fire
hazard and it puts our lives in
danger and the lives of all the
other people living above and
below us, and all of the people
we know and the people who
care about what happens to us
even though we never asked
them to. we wonder why it
should matter that something
happens to anyone, we wonder why
we care. and everything is
so quiet.