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 1236661.
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 1236661
it is 2026. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
because the longer
stare
we are sure
matter.
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
off it, noticing just how
inconsistent things are, how
and arbitrary the
differences seem
people and ideas, how musical a
painting can sound
seems to dry.
we wait for a few minutes
and wonder
okay
this beautiful?" we wonder
if nobody noticed
watch the air
around through
take another
sunlight and feel
behindingly the now
again
stops and continues again.
circles of ink
the conversation a
little with a every repetition
getting more accurate a every
repetition getting more. every a
little fewer mistakes
conversation going on outside
conversation. fewer, a little, a
little faster and the do to
pretend heated while we do our
aren't listening, a
conversation going on outside
becoming
repetition getting a accurate. the
conversation heated while we
getting every listening. a
little faster and with.
accurate, with fewer mistakes.
outside becoming heated the
conversation going on the becoming.
the on outside becoming
heated while we do our best
best we
. we, floating
our bodies
outside
walls of paint
walls
every
the
the wires
knot the
on just
own
somehow now
caused walls the
and
how
desk these things things on
purpose of if
. moment and
dents
freckle lot about
the
from outside. a
sound. we notice how
everything is so pink
remember why, but
don't. “can
for a while?” and,
it does.
quietingly, the
softmurmurs not
anything in particular or
convince anyone of anything,
prefering to let things
same when they need to stay
the same and change when
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.
happens, and
happening. the softmurmers not
even speaking about what's
going on or what's not going on
but instead
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.
laugh, and. can't we see
why so it seems to our which
is which ears much a of
good moment or how. bad
handwriting, and we next, years or
nothing ever really changes
really nothing really changes
question in are you ?” unexpected
: “who you are know then we
begin to laugh, and laugh, and
so in place the first place
when it minute or every comes
to comes to
can't think at the
marbles
the birds get their
tinkling or
right
so loudly with the
sunlight or fluorescent
batteries. the
water.
asking
and subject
were
or
thismomentingly
casting shadows longer than
expected
surface,
other, some
paintings and some printed out
from
laser
we never seem to notice
the changes until they've
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
through before how's and where
when whenever the
as we
cottonfluff drifting toward us. it
sticks to
from. a million coins
thrown every instant, fields
of possibility so
terrifyingly wide staring us
eye
look away
little
landing, and flying around
again. flying, landing, and
flying around again.
we wonder what would
make
make
leave the incense
when we go
though we
hazard
danger and
below us,
care about
should
happens
so
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
seat of an old car and someone
we care a lot about asks,
who are you?
think for a
another. we aren't able to answer
with anything except a held
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
eyes without laughinglines
which always find new things
to smile about
behind our ears, the way this
piece of
ground,
lamp switching on
about nothing in particular
particular, wanting to want
everything and wanting to want
nothing,
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 the same
all, that hiding is okay
sometimes and being naked is okay
too, that sometimes things
lead to
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
do things we don't want to
for things nobody had
control over in the first place
and jumping to conclusions
and making assumptions
intentions and what they want or
what they are afraid of.
forget that they are
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
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.
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 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
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
just a
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
somehow different this time
around. we cannot help but go
sleep again, this time with a
strange smile and already
looking forward to coffee. this
time with socks
blanket. this time with the
windows open: and in comes the
cooler air.
which don't allowing
things mean allowing things to
happen to so much or off a
trashbag somewhere near spoiled
eaten no, our a beautiful
thing.. this. thing be, if we
the ground, a with time
separate, at separate, going
somewhere with goal standing
around for playing some role in
this in this we being pushed
on everyone understand
quite understand ourselves
don't quite understand what
we why the with the way are
so ways many ways to write
poem, so
and it seems a new color new
piece of, probabilistic
relationships soullessness their
emptiness or soullessness if we
prefer
that down we are a pale blue
dot sand out place in is
every different don't
recognize or have names even names
recognize even when a good; a few
shelves down shelves a few
friend a long don't remember
even though the sound is from
an old cell fans wondering
where they are hurtling for a
minute for a minute
which whyhow expect that
things have to can things can be
we remember that
consistency and that taking a
allowing things which don't make
between our own actions own
actions
outside today the temperature
outside today temperature
outside today not so our untied,
on or off somewhere near
spoiled trashbag eaten spoiled
food being
over the world also means
world
control over having control
our thoughts
beautiful thing this is thing.
okay completely we watch if
be, if we the, ground the
green at the same time
together with the crowd and
separate
for job some role, when on
values being when
silence and quiet
small voice humming and
laughing in the other room.
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 they
are. and we realize that this
is
this is
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,
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
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.
we keep asking
questions like “will this make me
happy?” when instead it might
it would sound like if the
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
and the poems went flying in
the air all around and
everybody just watched it
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
poems, and that's just fine
realize we didn't want to know
the answers anyway when
there are
around us anyway. we just keep
laughing and grabbing poems out
of the air,
deciding to
othertimes using them as napkins.
the wind, the wind is
laughing too.
systems all around
and our lives fracturing
breaking apart piece by piece as
we keep trying to glue
things back together with
words and
and cathedrals
architectures in the mind and
in concrete, we begin to
feel jittery as we realize we
haven't stood up in hours, this
chair and its arms
narrow, pressing against the
sides of our skulls, plurals
and singulars not having so
much significance to us now
when the lights are
flickering
don't know who we are praying
to
what we want, what we should
want. fading. fading.
makes wood is so
resonant
trees of and how cars if in all
of a joke story these
another into the same, paints
and violins keeps ticking
pretending not to ink going around
hear voices from
how did we get here? the
questions which keep making their
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
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
if causing the lights to
flicker and the stove to begin to
smell like something is
burning so we all
what we had done in the
kitchen last but we
remember, and even the attempts to
remember make us
words, make us scream with our
fingers and pound harder and
harder on
wood is splintering
there
appears to budge this time or
that time or this
and
these these permeating
while just happens, other
making each other making and
relationships pushing buttons the or
intended, but expected or
intended the point. thoughts and
concrete interactions all ideas
permeating while we all outlines of
squares and trangles into
behind each other, shapes sort
of sort of making
themselves relationships pushing
buttons the seem to
direction. not always always
always seem to fall going the
way could be, could into.
ideas and interactions..
permeating while and these colors
and
permeating while these smile. it
all outlines it with
permeating while while we watch
with all just happens
trangles into other sort of of of
of geometries and making
themselves other
which always seem. not going
going the the direction. not
going that could be goals
thoughts and concrete, while a a
of into other things,
trangles into all just happens
outlines of squares and trangles
into other sort of things,
the seem to way, but maybe
that could thoughts
thoughts again be the sneaking
again. all a a smile. it
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 just like
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
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.
the conversation stays
the same nobody really
seems. agains to while while,
, the see slowly moving
clock clock seems
usual clunks the we again with
questions eyes with color when we
are stuck when stuck
moving so slowly but to
little
the wind. agains the or, and
underthere, a the see a color are
stuck
inside inside inside the clock
seems the clock working as
conversation
to
beforemaroon
moving so
fingers and
breathe
again
sound
all these
okay
thing
time lean trying to
.
by
while longer and we
and we sniffling
allergies
sound
our chests and
slantingway.
outside
fuzzy
for
these
recognize.
just
angles
windchimes
making us feel
vibrations
not notice..
us not warmer
okay. which making
inside the
even
even trying not okay, go from
one to the we
one to okay, and things okay
and one one to to from one to
the without without
are, and go from
sometimes they it other without
from one. and they
and sometimes are
from one to
even trying okay,
sometimes
sometimes they we
other without
even
they they that go even trying
sometimes they they
from one to the
okay okay, sometimes. and
trying, sometimes the other
without even they that we the
other without trying
even
things are
sometimes they not and sometimes
it happens that
be for (not about what
might
place of another
particular
through our ear
just just a little and but we
listen (we is )
trying to write things down as
worrying
breakfast what
writing without any particular
are out we are writing
intention
lines
still just with
smile
numbers and
time
someone
nobody
worrying so
another when begin with
lines scratchy to next word
which
things
smile we little and
absurd numbers think things
like were to listen
nobody is
worrying listened scheduling
and books thinking
worrying
one
in another when we are
particular sense of intention to
the which bounces going
and.
listen
all these different
circumstances calling for different
responses, different ways of
dealing and smiling. we are
smiling and we don't know why
because one of us smiled first?
these social gestures
who don't know why they
thought the joke was funny when
they didn't even hear
it
many things going on
once,
in every
traffic jam, a different
struggle behind every note in the
piano.
time. but
seeming like just another
ceiling.
arriving and keep arriving and
none of them ever seem to be
situations branching out into
possibilities fanning
incomprehensible
options impossible to weigh. we
end up just going with
seems as good as any, for now at
least
instincts but we don't
where we
it's hard to speak
sometimes. we are frustrated with
ourselves for our
inconsistencies
allowing things to be just the
they are and want to be,
always taking
taking action,
leftandrighting with the leftandright
once
were a different way or that
other face; we can't figure
quite sure if that question
leads anywhere
the energy to
too many responses waiting
behind each
seem to go anywhere
positive, anywhere
hurt anybody or dissipate
into the grass as if nothing
anything actually did or does
thought it all up out of some kind
of desperation and
confusion aimed at nothing in
particular, cycles going back
forth but never quite the same
way, always surprising
somehow and adding to the
confusion and lack
nowhere
are getting nowhere.
breathe breathe
lungs
lungs
questions.
we funny how. laughing!
isn't it funny how we can't
help but smile colors whose
names we can't remember stick
of of incense
incense is is glowing and
somehow becoming smoke smoke in
our our becoming smoke in
becoming smoke in breathe and we
we we breathe forget to ask
questions. ask funny questions to
ask
. laughing! it how.
really, the maybe
. now
sometimes
know and matter
if
that of around
and hand
two
somehow something we
have otherwise, a different
be more
and
really
of all these people we've
dams and statues
they
we out where
leaves
something could there
leaves
a
walking
anything
out
and
doesn't
isn't
hair
around
with all sticks perfectly
legible. we
but maybe
technique
it,
and all
are so quiet, a tiny hiss
clanging
breathe with the sunlight,
passing clouds causing these
and
quite tell why the wind
against the window, why one
harmony should point to
another,
sort
culminate into some bigger
as if we had been heading
there
were some kind of
behind
where this leaf decides to
fall in this rotting pile
from bad posture
strange sense of pressure from
the bottom
now the ventilation fan
slowing down into a periodic
the
do we care?
care? would it matter if
knew?
coin and