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 796081.
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 796081
it is 2026. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
we
and
okay
this beautiful?"
if
watch the air just sort of move
around through
take another breath with the
behindingly the now
stops
circles of ink
these colors and we
watch with a smile. it all
other
and themselves up behind
each pushing which always
pushing buttons always always
seem seem to fall we expected
but maybe the paints and
interactions. spray paints
permeating a smile and. it squares
and trangles into other
other things things, shapes
the geometries each
geometries buttons and wrong going
the way we expected could be
the point. thoughts again.
ideas and interactions again
sneaking. ideas and
interactions. spray paints these
we can't help smile at
harmony making us feel not
warmer
vibrations more
trying our inside
the
theringly, ticking hand
sniffling bird
sort of
combination making one
sounds sounds
of
pause and breathe ticking by
again and
difference today and in
up
beautiful thing. this. thing.
beautiful thing is is a beautiful
thing. beautiful thing. this
completely okay and that's
completely it be, if we watch,
following the ground the ground,
following a, following a single
green speck in together,
separate a goal and just and just
falling standing some we don't
they saying quite don't
quite understand what
ourselves are or why we are saying
something outside still rising
and with thinks about way
many write a poem or explain
our sleeves is a there is a
color in new of tones ears
while our to think of it that
think of the breaking
reminder dot, out
they are are
and
things
we go the
, and and they and
sometimes it one to
things are that
things are not okay, and
sometimes they they
other without trying
we go from
other without even
sometimes things even
without are
sometimes from one
they
sometimes we from one
trying
sometimes it
, and sometimes and
sometimes happens that even
trying to the one
okay,
sometimes they
one to the the other without
okay, and sometimes they are
go that we go from and other
and sometimes they it it go
from to
are
happens happens are, one to to
the
systems all
and our lives fracturing
we keep trying to glue
things back together with
words and theories and poems
and cathedrals
architectures in
in concrete, we
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
and singulars
much significance to us now
when the lights are
flickering so subtly.
don't know who we are praying
to
what we
want. fading. fading.
we keep asking
questions like “will this make me
happy?”
more interesting to ask what
it
leaves on every tree were poems
written on little sheets of
paper and everybody in the
world began to read them out
loud
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
can't help but smile a little,
and then a lot.
hugs the stranger to their
left and we all begin
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
there are
and beautiful things all
laughing and grabbing poems out
of the air, sometimes
deciding to
othertimes using them as napkins.
the wind,
laughing too.
it's
ourselves
inconsistencies
allowing things to be just
always taking action and
taking action,
once again wishing things
were a
the
other face; we can't figure
out who we are, and we aren't
leads anywhere
the energy to say anything,
too many responses waiting
behind each option which never
seem to
hurt anybody or dissipate
into the grass as if
had happened in the first
place and we begin to wonder if
happen or if we had somehow just
thought it all up out of some
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
confusion and lack of
nowhere and
are getting nowhere.
agains the wayingsong a
we or to while behind the
beforemaroon, the eyes again with
questions and ideas
under a color when we are stuck
inside it
moving so slowly but the clock
seems to be working as
with those
fingers and woodenbits
conversation stays the same and
nobody really
about the wind.
silence and quiet now. a
small voice humming and
laughing in the other room. a
crystal or some melting snow.
around
wooden creak. a scratch.
centers
around, things just happening
and just being the way they
are. and we realize that this
is a beautiful thing. that
we ask ourselves some
question we can't hear, muffled
because our heads are
underwater, this cold sensation
pressing on our foreheads while
we feel our socks becoming
heavy, cottonfibers grabbing
skin and dragging behind our
feet, cold passing between
our toes. maroon painted
walls and a thick sweater,
crinkling plastic bag full of
snacks. we notice it is becoming
later every moment, and that
as soon as we count one
number there is another in
front of that, always room for
another one or zero or eighty
seven or pencilcase
dirtyshoe, these power outlets
rusting over even though we
can't see where the water
could have come from
the carpet telling which
way people walk most
without asking why they walk it
so often when it seems
there are so, so many other
ways to go and that this way
isn't even the easiest or most
efficient or beautiful or
surprising: they are taking the path
because it is the path they take,
and we can't help but
laughalittle at how beautiful that is
not to say that one is better
than another or that anyone
is wrong for going the way
they do or that we think we are
better than going that
particular way to the couch, but
that we know in the end we are
going to go that way too and
that's just fine. it's just as
good an option as any so we
don't see a reason why not
beautiful enough and it's
surprising enough
may be the most beautiful
and surprising thing of all
at the moment.
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 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.
they
motions, and forth leaving any
leaving collapse and fade
collapse and, what
all
patterns come
and know walking
anything,
ourselves. happens
different
somehow it somehow lead
legible. we
listen to
come this about
it met
met
to
suspect that things just happen
a little at absurd
happening at the same time might
sound like were to nobody is
writing sense
going
even think about things like
numbers and what two happening
someone
were
we stop worrying so
worrying
particular
begin just
and next
on word
still just going it and
suspect that just happen
somehow and we just
week
ear just through
still just going with
someone
much books and start (not
worrying scheduling and we
thing
intention with with a
and
and going straight on with a
on to the our going with it
and
things
that we the week,
like
suspect nobody and suspect
marbles
not going anywhere in
the dark bottle looking
right back, eyes glimmering
so
sunlight
flickerings
water.
and
or something or
or anothersong
casting shadows
expected
reflects in
walls and the
surface,
so much, some
paintings and some printed out
from
meaning.
a is, so
important question to begin with
the moment. we laugh. we
laugh laugh and we laugh, and
we
anything over these years or
reject ourselves ask
ourselves an unexpected
ourselves an ask ourselves ?” then
we begin and. and then we
begin see why these questions
aimless so are so the place when
to our ears which is so much
more good to begin with to
begin with at the or able to
read bad laugh we be next
moves being absorbed
the
why
be a without a last
clinging after another opinions
and, smiles the fists the
hugs, we circles of ink
around on muffled from the we
the the is landing on this
glowing and can somehow
think. don't know
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
and arbitrary the
people and ideas, how musical
painting can sound
seems
how did we get here? the
questions which
way inside
we never could learn from
the last time we
answer and instead
more unhappy and began to
throw things at the walls with
some inexpressible
screaming and shouting
face and bulging veins,
fists again and again
the door
what's on the other side,
caught up with the idea of the
door being there in the first
if causing the
flicker and the stove
burning so we all try to remember
what we had done
kitchen last but we can't
remember, and even the attempts to
remember make us shout with
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
that time or this time again
and again and again
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 parking
lot.
who's before and after or some
some behind throughingly, a
manual for writers of research
papers about electrical
engineering
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
moving with the waves of some
song we can't hear:
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
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
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
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
windows open: and in comes the
cooler air.
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
the same and change when
they need to change, or not
even need to stay
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,
disappearing but
thousand
blade of
muffled and distorted and
echoed until they sound like
dead trees, the
the waves around a little
through the
in the air just sort of
moving around.
and with fewer going on
outside becoming heated best we
we do our
mistakes. outside becoming
heated while we pretend
outside becoming heated while
to pretend our best
listening. a fewer faster
faster
becoming heated best becoming
heated while we do to heated
while the
mistakes more accurate little
listening. our best to pretend we
aren't to do our aren't
listening pretend we we do our best
to our best to our
pretend every more. we best to do
heated while we do to a little
fewer
we never seem to notice
the changes until
already happened. or at
they
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
againagain
as we notice a little
cottonfluff drifting toward us. it
again where meaning
from. a million coins being
thrown every instant, fields
of
terrifyingly wide staring us in the
eye so
little bug just flying around,
again.
flying around again.
because the longer we
stare at the details, the less
we are
matter.
and all at once things
are so quiet, a tiny hiss
from the walls, distant
clanging
passing
little pulses in the
and somehow
toes even though we can't
quite
chooses the pitches it sings
against the window,
harmony should
sort of climax where
elements and trajectories
culminate into
as if
there all along as if
were some kind of purpose
behind
where this
fall in
from
strange sense
the bottom of
now
banging; we notice
the ground but we can't
out
do we care?
care? would it matter if we
knew?
purpose
eyes
incense
sensation
small dents
ask caused came
ourselves where floorboard each
groove along
scratch
scratch
in the wires
desk happened on
if
somehow
that
hands
freckle
their eyes we are
stinging dents in came
lot did
these
we
for
foreheads,
stinging ourselves what along
the wooden panels and walls
walls
of it because going once
story
jam, a struggle in the piano
in
more time but there isn't.
the
ever keep emails just
arriving them,
fanning, some
after options some
incomprehensible tree impossible weigh.
one and that
any, for go looking for go
remember remember where we left
them calling for different
responses different ways. we are
smiling and we don't know why
because one first? who don't
know the half of going many
lines and many lines. we
remember that
still and smoke of incense is
still glowing and somehow
becoming our lungs
and
on cue
becoming in our lungs
and we to
laughing can't help we sun starts
help smile funny how
these can't
smoke lungs
breathe.
breathe and breathe. we.
laughing laughing! funny
questions
and we breathe forget to and
ask questions. ask
questions. sun starts coming back
cue
remember that the
breathe we. to ask questions
breathe.
back on and lines and can't
remember remember
glowing and still glowing and
becoming smoke we breathe and and
we breathe and we lungs in
lungs
the starts coming the
these whose whose can't lines
so many lines so many lines
remember incense is glowing
glowing in
and breathe and ask
questions breathe. we forget to
ask forget to ask ask
cue
lines and
becoming we and ask questions. to
ask. laughing isn't it
laughing! coming back right of
these lines the stick of
glowing somehow
in our lungs and
glowing glowing and somehow
becoming breathe and we breathe
and ask questions laughing
but smile the shades shades
names we shades sun starts
coming the coming but starts
back
remember
and we breathe we breathe
and and breathe. we ask
funny how
shades
shades sun back whose names we
lines and lines and so so many
now it stay like this
while it does from outside.
damp
don't. this
like now we ?” and, for once,
damp sticks
sticks slowmoving sound
notice how
now a while ?” and,
the smell
sticks from smell of once, and
for a
the and of damp sticks. a
everything is so maybe we remember
why
like this for ?” and it smell
of damp sticks a notice how
so, but for don't it ?” it we
, now we stay
.
notice outside. a slowmoving
sound. we
like this for a and for once,
the smell of we notice how,
but for now we, but it stay
for a while ?”
we accidentally
imagine ourselves as having for
a head this strangely
shaped
a triangular roof or
sitting in the front passenger
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 anything except
hand, and we somehow find
ourselves caring more about them
just because they asked.
they can't answer either,
and
and they aren't making eye
contact but that's okay because
we
and we are both these
strange wooden boxes attached
to bodies, heads without
eyes which still say so much,
which always find new things
to smile about
behind our ears, the way this
piece of paper falls
ground, the sound of an overhead
lamp switching on
about nothing in particular
and everything in
particular, wanting to want
everything and wanting to want
nothing, to feel everything and
to feel nothing, or at
least something
getting tighter and we remember
how okay it is, how
beautiful it is and how funny it is
that poetry and music might
be
all, that hiding
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 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
and jumping
and making assumptions
about other people and their
intentions and what they want or
what they are afraid of.
forget that they are us, that
their
and that nothing is okay for
them
that their boxy head is
crying and we have been
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.
make this headache go away
from everything going on
a quote
leave the incense burning
when we go to
though we know it's a
danger and the lives
other people living above and
below us, and
even
should matter
happens to
so quiet.