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 8760636.
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 8760636
it is 2026. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
marbles in a
not going anywhere
particular
melodies, their strange rhythms
tinkling or rubbing
right back, eyes glimmering
sunlight or fluorescent
flickerings or
batteries. the lithium looking
asking
were important or
thismomentingly
casting shadows longer
reflects in
months before
other, some important some
so
paintings and
from an old black and white
that
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 or why's while
leftandright shrinking silently. a
wooden creak. a scratch. all
centers
around, things just happening
and just being the way they
are. and we
is a
this is a
we accidentally
imagine ourselves as having for
a head this strangely
shaped box or a bird feeder with
a
something similar and we are
sitting
seat of an old car and
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 the grip gets tighter
and
contact but that's okay because
we aren't looking anyway
and we
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
behind our ears, the way this
piece of paper falls on the
ground, the sound
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,
least something
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
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
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
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
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing.
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 able, might be
these years or these. changes
and we reject the really and
we ask ourselves an
unexpected you are answer. don't
know. begin to cry. and can't
when it seems like
minute so important
with at how we or able
handwriting, and laugh and might
what might changed over
these changes ask we and we
ourselves an unexpected return:
you ?” and we are return: ?”
and we don't know. and then
we we and laugh can't we see
why questions seems which
is we begin at the we read
bad handwriting. and we we
anything really ask we ask an in
return: “who ask ourselves ?”
and you ?” and are unable cry
we laugh see are it like
every ears which is like good
question begin to read and we
laugh, might nothing ever we
ask ourselves are return:
“who are “who unable to
answer to cry. and. and. and.
begin we and then we, to laugh,
laugh laugh, these questions
in we these like every
comes, so, good to the we laugh
laugh wonder what might, next
actually ever idea nothing
changes
begin laugh, and,. in aimless
in the see why when seems
ears why
question to we read bad we laugh
and, and we laugh we. we
wonder what might changed over
these years these over
changes ask ourselves ?” are.
cry. and laugh, and laugh
aimless in the first minute new
question good begin at the moment
or good question to begin
the moment or the of to begin
with to bad read bad
handwriting. we anything actually
anything actually anything over
these years. we reject that
nothing really nothing really
changes and ourselves an
question in we unable to don't
know. and laugh, cry
then to laugh, and laugh, and
laugh. can't we see these
questions place when seems like
question comes new question
comes to our ears our
which is ears is so, so more of
though we know when we
sleep even
know it's
and the lives the
lives
the other
the
happens
should
wonder why should. it happens
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
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
dead trees, the sun pushing
the waves around a little
through the screen
in the air just sort of
moving around.
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 all at once things
clanging
breathe with the
passing clouds
and
quite tell why the wind
chooses
against the
harmony
another, why every story
sort
elements and
culminate into some bigger
as if we
there all
were some kind of purpose
behind the penscratches or
where this leaf
fall in this
notice
strange sense of pressure
slowing down into a periodic
banging; we notice a coin
the ground but we can't
out which side
care?
knew?
coin
by one with a scratchy
pen
still just going. happen
smile
but smile
happening same
like if
things
cross when we without any we
particular sense of intention
going
with somehow and
help but how
care a someone
things just
somehow foreheads, that it
might
open the windows feel this
notice
walls
knot in it
somehow moment and
feel
every freckle and scratch
about, we care a
happened things just if
purpose of
purpose these things
moment and feel floating, that
outside to
ask ourselves caused
wooden panels and
panels and
it funny funny how we
can't can't the sun starts
starts coming back back right
on we that we lines and
lines.. we the stick remember
stick of incense is stick
stick lines. we lines
laughing it
laughing we forget to to
questions. laughing but we can't
help but
help but smile when the
coming back
incense stick is still glowing
in our becoming
. questions
isn't it the sun starts coming
remember
somehow becoming incense is
still
somehow smoke in our lungs
breathe and and ask questions
the shades names we can't
remember we can't remember names
so lines so
remember and can't remember
many stick remember
remember
becoming becoming smoke somehow
the becoming smoke somehow
breathe. laughing can't starts
the sun starts help when the
coming back
but smile right on whose we
whose names we can't the stick
that the remember lines. we
lines and so many lines so
remember names we shades of lines
remember
many
questions! isn't isn't it funny
how we
the sun starts coming can't
! forget to ask
we never seem to
the changes until they've
they are well into
happening. we wonder why
the clouds evaporating and
the
getting so slightly warmer; a
single row of
different
through before
when whenever the
againagain the words
as
cottonfluff drifting toward
sticks to our ink,
from. a million
of possibility so
terrifyingly wide staring us
eye so intensely we have to
little bug just flying around,
landing,
again. flying, landing, and
flying around again.
systems all around us
and our lives fracturing
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
haven't stood up in hours, this
chair and its arms a little too
narrow, pressing against the
sides of
and singulars not having so
much significance to us now
when the lights are
flickering so subtly. we
don't know who we are praying
to
what we want, what we should
want. fading. fading.
. these staring us away
and of bits of us so of their
wheels. we end it will all turn
of a punchline, a these
another into the, paints
ticking our best pretending of
ink around on muffled
changing every moment all the sun
the it on don't if don't and
because never have made or like
on our and going trees and
in us
is doing how the air sort
tones us in eyes kind which
pushes wonder why wood
trees quickly how cars turn
their if be part. glue, one
facts falling, the, keeps
ticking we not notice. circles
while we hear other room we
notice the temperature
changing is landing how feel on
our skin moment
themselves don't care we perfectly
okay because caring about
made us happy feel more human
laughing on our arm going, the and
an able us what every just.
these eyes without absorbed
into some
one another, one after
another facts falling into the
same and fists and violins we
not to around voices can't
help but notice around us of
paper and how the whole
somehow feel
know we don't don't care and
that's okay caring have more
our through our wind around
we
for, what every person and
object is around absorbed
kind makes us so resonant,
and cars we wonder end it, a
story
it's
sometimes. we are frustrated with
ourselves for our
inconsistencies
allowing things to be
they are and want to
taking
leftandrighting with the
once again wishing things
were
the coin had landed
other face;
out who we are, and we aren't
quite sure if that question
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
had happened in
place
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
particular, cycles going back and
forth but never quite the same
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.
they
maybe or felt grow
walking
so so they so
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 the poem
through a word
the arounds and behinds
lost somewhere in the mix,
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
and spinningly and
uppingly and backwardly, more
harsh and out of sync, now neon
colorlines and batteries, strange
gaps in
patterns but something about
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.
windows open: and in comes the
cooler air.
because the longer we
stare at the details,
we are sure they even
matter.
how did we get here? the
questions which keep making their
way inside our mouths as if
we never could learn
the last time we couldn't
answer
more unhappy and
throw things at the walls with
some inexpressible
screaming and shouting with a red
face and bulging veins,
fists again and
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
if causing the lights to
flicker and the stove
smell like something is
burning so we all try
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
we keep asking
questions
happy?” when instead it might be
more
it would sound like if the
leaves on every
written on little sheets of
paper
world began to read them out
loud
then the wind began to blow
and the
the air all
everybody just watched it
in complete silence
can't help but smile a little,
and then a
left and we all begin to
laugh. we ask ourselves
another question we can't hear
realize we didn't want to know
the answers anyway when
there are so many confusing
and beautiful things all
around us
laughing and grabbing poems out
of the air,
deciding to read them and
othertimes using them as napkins.
the
laughing too.
remember
“can it stay like while ?”
slowmoving sound
remember why
does
how but for
from we notice how
everything but for
once, it does of notice how
everything a slowmoving sound
everything
maybe we remember
remember why, but for now it stay
like
whyhow which whyhow
against the doors, the the we
expect make sense we remember
just remember consistency
is consistency is taking
even mean away could
between
outside today, our minds on or
off or trashbag near
spoiled control over ourselves
actions, our, this is and that.
is a beautiful
the pollen drift
falling in the path job this
thing we thing we this vaguely
defined values being
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
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.
. more okay
and another not
but try not the
more but thing work or
slantingway or or work and
again while all
these
keeps
we remember
instincts but where all these
different
ways we are are smiling one us
smiled
don't know why
don't know why
are of different different
we different responses,
different. we are of us across a
thought the joke was
didn't even hear half of it at
once, in
behind every note in the if
but just another ceiling
keep sky seeming like just
arriving and keep arriving
none
ceiling
keep arriving and seem, all
these
out into into
possibilities fanning out these
fanning, options just saw and
that as good as now at them.
all these
circumstances calling and smiling.
are smiling different ways
we are, smiling know first
? these social who these
who don't know why
people who the
half of it because there
things
single in every single car in
this there. emails just of
them ever seem to be from into
fanning
out into entire fanning
fanning into options after into
options weigh we end just going
saw for we go
instincts we dealing and smiling.
we are smiling and we don't
one
first people who know why
little faster and the
conversation faster and little
every more getting a little
more
getting a repetition getting
every aren't heated. the on
outside becoming heated aren't
listening. aren't listening. we
aren't listening. aren't to
pretend we aren't listening we.
every repetition getting a
little, a getting a accurate,
repetition getting a little more.
aren't listening repetition
faster fewer faster and
getting a to aren't listening a
accurate, with fewer accurate.
the fewer mistakes.
mistakes. the on outside
becoming with little faster on
outside becoming
accurate a every
little faster and little
mistakes on outside
conversation and with fewer mistakes
. outside becoming with
fewer faster and with fewer
mistakes conversation going on
heated while we best to pretend
heated
fewer mistakes. the
conversation
mistakes while we
accurate, a conversation faster
fewer and a little, a and
little going on
becoming we do we aren't every
repetition little more faster
outside becoming heated
outside
conversation going while we do our
best to pretend we aren't
listening. getting a little more
listening
pretend we aren't getting a
little getting a little
getting
seems nobody
seems to about to we while
behind the eyes with the see
moving so slowly slowly moving
so clock seems be with with
and and
care the the the wayingsong a
stuck it clock clock but the
the clock
those and. same and to to
underthere,, a with eyes eyes
are not
sometimes they and
the
trying and sometimes
that go from one to other
things are are
we go without
are sometimes go from one
and are trying. and
sometimes
happens that
sometimes,
it
sometimes they are
we go from
that we and and sometimes
that we
even trying.
things are they go from
the
even trying. and things even
trying.
we wait
and wonder if
okay for us
this beautiful?" we
watch the
around
take another breath with the
sunlight
behindingly the now
again the time continues
stops and continues again.
the corner of the room
empty except for the little
grooves
smile. the moments going and
going in such a beautiful
that we can't take our
off it, noticing just how
inconsistent things are, how blurry
and
differences seem between things and
people and ideas,
painting can sound
seems to dry.
and dominoes direction
. not going the or or
intended,
could, but maybe that could be
the point
the point. intended, we
expected or intended could, be
the point. goals could
goals interactions again.
all paints and concrete
permeating while and thoughts
again. sneaking into the
ideas and interactions