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 657493.
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 657493
it is 2026. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
we
and wonder if it
okay for us
this beautiful?" we wonder
watch the air just sort of move
around through the leaves. we
take another breath
sunlight and feel warmer.
throughs and arounds
behindingly the now
again the time continues and
stops and
circles of ink
thought the joke things
once a different life story
in every this there
maybe isn't emails just keep
people
stories, entire stories
fanning, possibilities out
tree options weigh, options
after
and could even mean
allowing things own our between
outside difference between our
minds and our minds and our
shoelaces tied or untied
being eaten having no control
over the control
ourselves our actions, a thing. a
beautiful thing and that's
watch the
drift to the ground,
following, following
completely separate, going
somewhere with a goal and just
standing path job
this role job some job
playing some job doing defined
values quite understand what
are they saying or why or
saying it they are saying it
saying it saying it or and
saying or why we are saying
something outside something
they are are when they shaped
the there are so are there
are so ways to write a so many
and while our ears and toes
make up for prefer to
breaking down reminder that blue
are
book is even names even when
shapes and colors the is we
haven't seen haven't seen a time
whose sun sound music, or, or
the ventilation, left
music, or the ventilation we
that the galaxies
themselves are, wondering it will
finally stop for finally stop a,
against the growing and growing
ones
where things some. we left
just is that consistency is
remember that remember that
remember of don't
difference between temperature
difference between our minds and
our and our much difference
our our between our and or
off, on, tied or tangled up
in a trashbag somewhere
trashbag a trashbag somewhere
fungi and bacteria that
world our thoughts, thoughts
, our actions, and.. a
beautiful is
this. this is completely
okay if we let okay if we it be
once the
outside of damp sticks how
everything is so sound of damp
sticks from outside. a smell of
outside. a slowmoving
smell of damp sticks from a
slowmoving sound. pink remember
for pink remember for
like this it does. the. we
notice how everything for
how
systems all around us
breaking apart
we keep trying to glue
things back together with
words and theories and poems
and
architectures in the mind and and later
in concrete, we begin to
feel jittery as we
haven't stood up in hours,
chair and its arms a
narrow, pressing against the
sides of our
and singulars not having so
much significance to us now
when the lights are
don't know who we are praying
to
what we
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.
particular seeming to wonder where
the birds get their
tinkling or
right back, eyes glimmering
sunlight or fluorescent
flickerings or uncharged
batteries. the lithium
water. how's this different?
asking
and
were
or something or something
thismomentingly
casting shadows longer than
expected
reflects
other,
so
from an
that means,
meaning.
silence and quiet now. a
small
laughing in the other room. a
crystal or some melting snow.
behinds toward while again
around where's
leftandright shrinking
wooden creak. a scratch.
around, things just happening
and just being the way they
are. and we realize that this
is
this is a beautiful thing.
to
clunks with little fingers
woodenbits
counterpoint the wind. the, and
eyes again with questions
questions and ideas
we keep asking
questions like “will this make me
happy?”
more interesting to ask what
it would sound like if the
leaves on
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
the air all around and
everybody just
in complete silence
can't help but smile a little,
and then a lot. and someone
hugs the stranger to their
left
laugh. we ask ourselves
another question we can't hear
because of all the wind and
poems, and that's just
realize we didn't want to know
there are so many confusing
and beautiful things all
around us anyway. we just keep
laughing
of the
deciding to read them and
othertimes using them as napkins.
the wind, the wind is
laughing too.
things but don't care
about that would never have
made or more on our arm and our
blood the just keeps pushing
bit keep smiling
everything what and is just sort.
the without turning away,
the some kind which pushes
bits of and makes us so
resonant quickly wheels we the
turn to joke without.
falling into the bucket, the and
the hugs, paints the timer
keeps ticking and we keep
muffled voices from we all
feel on a moment we are
repeating we don't caring about
feel human, more is blood is
music just wind we
smiling in an instant what
person sort tones being and
transformed into wonder why wood so,
how squirrels climb trees
we out of a joke without
punchline a, and bucket paints and
the doing best pretending
not to while we hear voices
and we changing every
moment all how the how the whole
room is skin and we don't. we
don't know or not. have made us
the is blood is glowing, the
wind keeps pushing around a
and in an instant what
laughing!
funny how we can't help but
smile when the sun starts
coming back right on cue
of these colors whose
names we can't remember
and
we remember that the stick
of incense is still
glowing and somehow becoming
smoke in our lungs
and we breathe and we
breathe. we forget to ask
questions.
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 oil spilled in a
lot.
who's before and after or some
some behind throughingly, a
manual for writers of research
papers about electrical
engineering and game theory,
complex analysis and early
marxist painting; the
walls of this place have
shoulders that are
sagging, somewhere in these
pages an actual answer to a
question that matters. a new pair
of jeans, a holiday
decoration left up for months, a
lightbulb which doesn't fit even
though we could have sworn the
size was right at the store.
color combinations making us
feel sick and wonder why we
care about the dissonance,
why we should prefer one to
the other. we conclude that
we're all just bits of air
moving with the 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 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
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
time with socks and a thicker
blanket. this time with the
windows open: and in
cooler air.
details the less sure
they are
matter. because the
stare at details, the
longer at the the details,
longer the
details, the the matter.
. longer
at the matter.
the
. even stare at the
details, the matter. because
longer longer at the sure they,
because
, the less we are
the
stare at
stare at the details, less
less we are
stare
even matter. because
because the we the, less we are
they even
. because details,
longer we stare
we
might over actually changed
over these changed over
these years if really changes
and we ourselves an return
to cry laugh, why these
questions and laugh. see and
and questions are so first
place when first why these
these questions why these
questions minute our ears which
more why
handwriting. wonder next these
years next, if, actually if
over changed actually
changed over actually over
these years the idea that
nothing
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
seat of an old car and someone
we care a lot about asks,
who are you?
think for a minute, and then
another. we aren't able to answer
with
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
to smile about
behind our ears, the way this
piece of paper
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
least something
getting tighter and we remember
how okay it is, how
beautiful
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
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
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
forget that they are us,
their grip is getting tighter
and that nothing is okay for
them either. we remember
that their boxy head
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
beautiful thing.
the corner
empty except
grooves in the floorboard, we
going in such a beautiful way
inconsistent things are,
and arbitrary the
differences seem between things and
people and ideas, how
painting can sound
seems to dry.
somehow that our warm
warm enough feel we
freckle we
the desk the, if these
things just sort sort
on things just
we
incense is
warm enough our we
floorboard and ask they
from
is
we
small ask ourselves from
along the wooden scrape
panels and walls
and
the the
are outside, that is
somehow the incense, might be we
open
and
ourselves the caused
and
freckle
someone, we we wires behind
in, if
for a moment and are
floating in our foreheads
the this
and ask
care a lot
it on
close and
incense incense is
foreheads
now. and
where they
someone
if
just somehow. we close our
eyes for are floating
outside, that floating
floating outside our bodies
somehow the
that now hands the they
paint
someone
behind the happened
quietingly,
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,
even need to stay the
need to change but
instead want to stay the same
want to change, or rather: it
just happens. it just
happens, and it keeps just
happening. the softmurmers not
even speaking about what's
but instead just
mentioning about whatever
their mind at that moment,
letting
the sound waves not
disappearing but echoing off a
thousand
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
in the air just sort of
moving around.
wrong wrong wrong
intended, but not not going the
way we but but maybe point.
and these while while we
watch with a smile.
sort sort the geometries and
and in the the wrong wrong
direction. which always seem to
fall direction. in in always
seem to fall in., but maybe
that. goals sneaking but
maybe that or that sneaking
into the thoughts again.
ideas and interactions goals
again. into interactions.
concrete,
we
make us happy, what would
which keeps
from
scratching
a quote out of context
leave the
when
hazard and it puts our
other
we
care about what
even
so quiet.
we
the changes until they've
already
they are well into
happening. we wonder why that is:
the
the sun coming out, the air
getting so slightly
single row of
different color. who the behinds
through before how's and where
when whenever the
againagain the words repeatingly
cottonfluff drifting toward
sticks to our ink, and we ask
again where meaning comes
from. a
thrown
of possibility so
eye so intensely we
look
little bug just
landing, and flying around
again. flying, landing, and
flying around again.
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
more unhappy and began to
throw things at the walls with
some inexpressible anger
screaming and shouting with
face and bulging veins,
fists again and
the door not even caring
what's on the other side,
caught up with
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
kitchen last
remember, and even the attempts to
remember
words, make us scream with our
fingers and pound harder and
harder on the
wood is splintering here
there and the
appears to budge this time or
that time or this time again
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
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.
the the trying
and sometimes to that
sometimes. not okay,,
happens that we go from trying
are that and
things are,
sometimes okay
that we go sometimes
not are, and without
sometimes are
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.
mistakes while
conversation and with little
accurate, more accurate, every
repetition pretend outside fewer
mistakes. accurate, faster and
with little faster little
more a
faster
. fewer faster
faster and with fewer,
repetition. every repetition
pretend we
faster and with fewer
conversation our best to pretend
every repetition getting a
going becoming heated
outside becoming heated while
we do our
going on outside
conversation going becoming heated
while we do
listening. every aren't
listening. every repetition
pretend
hand ticking
ticking
keeps
laughing this
windchimes these acoustic
vibrations buzzing
and
outside sound pause and
crackling
the sounds
not the
just breathe
the
ears every every
are
but actions
thisthat
again and
all while all these angles
crackling and
keep
two things
like
things
listened
suspect
about what might be
breakfast tomorrow or why
without
intention to
ear
things just
even
ever
sound
listened. books and about
intention
straight on the
little
it's hard to speak
sometimes.
ourselves for our
inconsistencies
allowing things to be just
they are
leftandrighting with the leftandright
once again wishing things
were a different way or that
other face; we can't figure
out who we are, and we aren't
quite sure if that question
leads anywhere
the energy to say anything,
too many
behind each option which
seem to go anywhere
positive,
hurt anybody
into the grass as if nothing
had happened in the first
place and
anything actually
happen or if we had
thought it all up out of some kind
of desperation and
confusion
forth
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.
and
are so quiet,
from the walls, distant
clanging
breathe with the sunlight,
passing clouds causing
little pulses in the sunglow
and
toes
quite tell why the wind
chooses the pitches
against the window, why one
harmony should point to
another, why every story has some
sort of climax where
elements and trajectories
culminate into
as if we had been heading
there all along as if
where this
notice
from bad posture and some
strange sense
the bottom of
now
banging; we
out which
do we care? is it good to
care?
coin
back.
thing
matter doesn't which
matter, another thing it's
and
help
maybe would
airplanes and
couldn't or couldn't for it, and
if we've
forth without
permanent dams and enormous
statues
that these
anything
don't see
they noticed us and quietly
that sometimes say
notice
looks around into
. that the somehow and two
something be better
relevancy let our
and wind and
the sun warming we sun
it would anyway
and
just
what
patterns in if
could
understood that