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 1385935.
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 1385935
it is 2021. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
marbles in
not going anywhere
particular
melodies, their strange rhythms
tinkling or rubbing cardboard.
the dark bottle looking
so
sunlight
water.
asking
and subject matter like it
or
reflects
walls and the nearby desk
months before piled over each
and
paintings and
from
meaning.
we best we aren't
accurate. with fewer
becoming our while we
to pretend heated while we
do the
more accurate, the
conversation heated aren't pretend
best we we pretend
every to
getting a accurate, the
conversation going best to heated.
the conversation going on
to. aren't listening do to
pretend we aren't to becoming
heated while the conversation
. a
with little going
conversation going on outside
becoming heated while our while
we do our best outside
becoming going on outside going
on outside while we
becoming heated do going on
outside becoming on the fewer
mistakes. the, a little mistakes
. with fewer little more a
repetition getting pretend
listening repetition faster and
with fewer mistakes and
little faster. the do our best
to pretend we more a every
best we we do
conversation going on with fewer
mistakes with
while we
how did we get here? the
questions which keep making their
way inside our mouths
we never could learn from
the last
answer and instead only become
more
throw things at the walls with
some inexpressible anger
screaming and shouting with a red
face
fists again and again against
the door not even caring
caught up with the idea of the
door being there
if causing the lights to
flicker
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
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
that time or this time
and again and again
if
clinging to one another with some
rock
bucket, the the fists and
timer keeps
pretending. circles of while we
hear temperature around us
sun is paper and and we can
skin about anything at all
things care. that's perfectly
about made like the
keeps
the of staring us away
floorboards and into some why of
quickly and wheels. it will part
without clinging to one glue
into the screams and paints
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
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
what we want, what
want. fading. fading.
quietingly, the
softmurmurs not trying to say
anything in particular
convince anyone of anything,
the way they are and stay the
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 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
but instead
mentioning about whatever is
their mind at that moment,
the sound
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.
and concrete concrete
concrete, all a a all just happens
into of all just things
things,
pushing buttons seem going the
way, sneaking into the
paints and ideas permeating
while just a all and trangles
into behind each other other
making each each other which
which. not going the the way we
expected going going the
intended, goals sneaking but
maybe goals sneaking again.,
concrete, all these smile just
happens,
themselves themselves up behind
each other
buttons and dominoes which
always in
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
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
make
make
which keeps
scratching
a quote out of context
leave
when we
danger and the lives
below us, and all
we know
care
even though we never asked
should
we care. and everything
different
hoping
hoping
more let it go
legs
prepare
of all we anyway these
people we've
conversation
to
place how many
collapse fade
understood we they walk sight
happens eight yet
us, is
ink
airplanes and feel the
could
anything
it would matter sounds
anyway
laughter
many
because
leaves
some patterns come
to understood
ourselves
sun is, us, us, and that and
us
the
we never seem to notice
the
already happened. or at least
they are well into
the clouds evaporating
the sun coming out, the air
getting so slightly warmer; a
different color. who the behinds
through before how's and where
when whenever the
againagain the words repeatingly
as
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
little bug just flying around,
landing, and flying around
again. flying, landing, and
we wait for a few minutes
okay for us to ask now: "is
this beautiful?" we wonder
watch the air just sort of
around through the leaves.
take
sunlight and feel warmer.
throughs and
behindingly the now nowing while
again
stops and continues again.
it's hard to speak
sometimes. we
ourselves
inconsistencies
allowing things to be just the way
they are
always taking action and never
taking action,
leftandrighting with
were a different way or that
the coin had landed on the
other face; we can't figure
out who we
quite sure if
leads anywhere
the energy to say anything,
too
behind each
seem to go anywhere
positive, anywhere that doesn't
hurt anybody or dissipate
into the grass as if nothing
had happened in
place and we begin to wonder
anything
happen
thought it all up out of some kind
of desperation and
confusion aimed
particular, cycles going back and
forth but never quite the
somehow and adding to the
confusion
place,
nowhere and the feeling that we
are getting nowhere.
we accidentally
imagine
a head this strangely
shaped box or a bird feeder
a triangular roof or
something similar and we are
sitting in the front passenger
seat of an old car and
we care a lot about asks,
who are you?
think for a minute, and then
with anything except a held
hand, and we somehow find
ourselves caring more about them
just because they asked.
they
and
contact but that's
we aren't looking anyway
and we are both these
strange wooden boxes
to bodies, heads without
eyes
eyes without laughinglines
which always
to smile about
behind our ears, the way this
piece of paper falls on the
ground,
lamp switching on
about nothing in particular
and everything
particular, wanting to
everything and wanting to want
nothing, to feel everything and
to feel
least something
getting tighter and we remember
how okay
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
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
get frustrated and start to
do
do, blaming other people
for things nobody had
control over in the first place
and jumping to conclusions
about other people and their
intentions and what they want
forget that they are us, that
their grip is getting tighter
and that nothing is
them either. we remember
that their boxy head is
crying
not to notice. we remember
person born into different
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing.
like we are
warm
floorboard where caused each
wooden on the
desk
did of happen close
our
enough
panels and freckle and scratch
nobody were stop
worrying so much about
scheduling and
thinking and thinking (not
tomorrow might
what be thinking
what might be
tomorrow or about what and start
(not worrying about what
bounces
happening
same time if
but
the vibrations
actions sun
the grass a
breathe hand hand while longer
and allergies
back right of these
colors whose
coming back
of these colors shades of
these whose names we can't
remember many lines and many we we
lines still glowing somehow
becoming breathe we we breathe
and we laughing laughing!
isn't we forget ask questions
forget to ask breathe breathe
and we questions. laughing
ask laughing laughing
can't smile
colors whose we
and so many that lines and so
many lines is still glowing
in
because the longer we
we are
silence and quiet now. a
small
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
around, things
and just being the way
are. and
is a beautiful thing. that
this is a beautiful thing.
which whyhow
thumpingly against the doors, the
momentnow changing and growing,
shapes never leading to ones we
expect in situations where
things might make sense of some
kind. we remember that things
don't have to make sense, that
things can be left just as they
happen
consistency is another sort of
illusion and that taking a step
away could even mean
allowing things which don't make
sense to happen
difference between our own actions
and the temperature
outside today, not so much
difference between our minds and
our shoelaces
untied, on or off or tangled up in
a trashbag somewhere
near spoiled food being
eaten by bacteria and fungi
remember that having no control
over the world also means
having no control over
ourselves, our thoughts, our
actions, and that this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing and that's
completely okay if we let it be, if we
watch the pollen drift to the
ground, following a single
green speck in its strange
path
together with the crowd and
completely separate, at the same
time going somewhere with
goal and just falling in the
air's path, standing around
for hours supposedly doing
some job playing some role in
this thing we call society,
vaguely defined values being
pushed on everyone even when we
don't quite understand what
anyone is saying or why they are
saying it or and we ourselves
don't quite understand what
we ourselves are saying or
why we are saying it
still saying something
outside, the sun's belly still
rising and falling
breath as it thinks about
wooden cabinets and why they
are shaped the way they are
when
possibilities, so many ways to write a
poem or explain a thought, so
many ways to build a chord and
roll up our sleeves when it
seems everyday that there is a
new color in the sky, a new
piece of garbage on our desks.
different tones of voice and
combinations of words,
probabilistic relationships
imitating meaning while our ears
and toes make up for their
emptiness or soullessness if we
prefer to think of it that way.
the illusion breaking down
again, a smallvoiced reminder
that we are a pale blue dot, a
grain of sand out of place in a
library where every book is in a
different language and there are
pictures of things we don't
recognize or have names for even
when we thought we had a good
grip on shapes and colors; we
are not sure if the
shuffling feet a
is a librarian or an old
friend we haven't seen in a long
time whose name we don't
remember even though years ago we
had laughed until the sun
came back
left playing music, or the
ventilation fans turning back on
remember that the galaxies
themselves are asking questions of
their own, wondering where
they are hurtling toward,
wondering when it will finally
stop for a minute
why
don't
many things on
many
even hear half were so many
things at once single
jam
. the sky seeming
just keep arriving and keep
arriving and another ceiling
keep arriving them ever seem
to and keep arriving and
keep arriving emails.
another
. but there isn't. more
time. the piano but ceiling.
seeming like just
another ceiling. arriving
arriving and keep arriving and
keep
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
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 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.
and
are
from
clanging of a ventilation fan. we
breathe
passing
little pulses
toes even though we can't
quite tell why the wind
chooses the pitches
against the window, why one
harmony
another, why
sort of climax where
culminate into some bigger thing
as if we had
were
behind the penscratches
where
fall
notice
from bad posture
strange sense of pressure from
the bottom
slowing down
banging; we notice a coin lying on
out which side it landed on.
do we care? is it
care? would it
knew? we are
coin and
back.
we or to while behind
eyelids, and underthere, a
beforemaroon, the eyes again
questions and ideas
under a color when we
inside it
seems to be working as usual
conversation stays the
about the wind.
from other without even
other
are not okay, and sometimes
that even trying trying.,
sometimes things and
not
other
they
happens
happens are and even not okay
from one
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.
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
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
organ keyboard, some body of
loud waters, some
electrical structure groaning in
rains
the breezings, the
waves, the eyeballs
left and right or up and down
or is that a sign of
happiness, of
peacefulness? who's to
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
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
just a little more like dirty
wallpaper:
it happened. where the
music got faster. where the
blue became green, where the
light was switched on and the
newer waves began to
interfere with things
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
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.
empty except for the little
grooves
smile. the moments going and
going in such a beautiful way
that we can't take our eyes
off it, noticing
inconsistent
and arbitrary
differences seem between things
people and ideas, how musical
painting can sound
seems to dry.