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 6189753.
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 6189753
it is 2025. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
tangling wires into
these
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,
the breath being exhaled
before we even noticed it was
inside our bodies, each note
rising just a little
just a little more like dirty
wallpaper:
it happened. where the
blue
light was switched on and the
newer waves began to
interfere with things and distort
the shapes, canceling out
performing more complicated
operations until
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 to
sleep again, this time with a
strange smile and already
looking forward to coffee. this
time with socks and a thicker
blanket. this
windows open: and in comes the
cooler air.
how did we get here? the
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
some inexpressible anger
screaming
face
fists again and
the door
what's on the
caught
door being
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 in the
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
wood is
there and the doorframe
appears to budge this time or
that time or this time again
and again and again
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.
silence and quiet now. a
small voice humming and
laughing in the other room. a
crystal or some melting snow.
behinds toward while again
around where's or why's
wooden creak. a scratch. all
centers
around, things just happening
are. and we realize that this
is a beautiful
this is a
we keep asking
questions like “will this make me
happy?” when instead it might
more interesting to ask what
it would sound like if the
leaves on every tree were
written on little sheets of
paper and everybody in the
world began to read them
loud
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. and someone
hugs the stranger to their
left and we all begin to
laugh. we ask ourselves
another question we
because of all the wind
poems, and that's just fine
realize we didn't want to know
the answers anyway when
there are so many confusing
and beautiful things all
around us anyway.
laughing and grabbing poems out
of the
deciding to read them and
othertimes using them as napkins.
the wind, the wind is
laughing too.
okay for us
this beautiful?" we wonder
if nobody
watch
take
sunlight and feel warmer.
throughs and arounds
behindingly the now nowing while
stops and
circles of ink
laughing! isn't it
funny how we can't help but
coming back right on cue
of these colors
names we can't remember
and lines and so many lines.
we remember that the stick
of incense is still
glowing and somehow becoming
smoke in our lungs
and
breathe. we forget to ask
questions.
make us
make this
from everything going on
scratching pens and observations,
a
hazard and it
danger and
other people living above and
care about
even though we
should
we care. and everything is
so quiet.
smell
everything is so we remember but we
from outside sound. we is
notice from outside. how
everything pink remember
“can while ?” and, outside.
how everything
maybe, but. like this we we
now we don't like this for
damp a slowmoving maybe why,
don't ?” and for
damp sticks
smell of damp sticks
so
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 poems
and cathedrals
architectures in the mind and and later
in concrete, we begin
feel jittery as we realize we
haven't
chair and its
narrow, pressing against the
sides of our skulls,
and
much significance to us now
when the lights are
flickering so subtly. we pray but
don't know who we are praying
to
and
while
theringly
all these angles
keeps while longer
people of
laughing
of our not
we accidentally
imagine
a head this strangely
shaped box or a bird feeder with
a triangular roof or
something similar and we are
sitting in the front passenger
seat
we
who are you?
think
another. we aren't able to answer
with anything except a held
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
and we are both these
strange wooden boxes attached
to bodies, heads without
eyes which still say so much,
eyes without laughinglines
which always find new things
to smile
behind our ears, the way this
piece of paper falls on the
ground, the sound of an overhead
lamp switching on
about
and everything in
particular, wanting to want
everything
nothing, to feel everything and
to
least something
getting
how okay it is, how
beautiful it is and how funny it is
that poetry and music might
be
all, that hiding is okay
sometimes and being naked is okay
too, that sometimes things
lead to other things, and
sometimes they
they keep just happening and
they don't stop. they
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 to
about
what they are afraid of.
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
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
beautiful thing.
we wonder what might be
next, if anything actually
changed over these years or if
nothing ever really changes. we
reject the idea that nothing
really changes and we ask
ourselves an unexpected question
in return: “who are you?”
and we are unable to answer.
we don't know. and
begin to cry. and then we begin
to laugh, and laugh, and
laugh. can't we see why these
questions are so aimless in the
first place when it seems like
every minute or second a new
question comes to our ears which
is so, so, so much more
important
of a good question to begin
with at the moment or how we
are able to read bad
handwriting. we laugh, and we laugh,
and we laugh.
we never
the changes until they've
already happened. or at least
they are well into
the clouds evaporating and
getting so slightly warmer; a
single row of
through before
when whenever
againagain the words repeatingly
as we notice a little
cottonfluff drifting toward us. it
sticks to our ink, and
again where meaning
from. a million coins being
thrown every instant, fields
of possibility
look away
little bug
again. flying, landing, and
the corner of the room
empty except for the little
grooves in the floorboard, we
smile. the moments going and
going in such
that we can't take our eyes
off it, noticing just how
inconsistent things are, how blurry
and arbitrary the
differences seem between things and
painting
seems to dry.
circles around on room
notice all around
landing this piece the whole and
we can somehow feel for we
all things are we don't
perfectly okay would never made or
like the is through the and
keep smiling and in are to
what it, what every person
and object just tones
turning away
makes wonder why wood turn
other without.
sometimes things they the other
without without the other.
other without trying without
without trying. and sometimes
things even other without
sometimes they are other to the
not
okay, and
one and sometimes
sometimes it it happens
floorboard and
what caused
behind happened these things
somehow.. their somehow. we
eyes for a
that
the floorboard
where
the wires knot
our feel like we moment and
that the incense is
foreheads
now.. we
still just going with
things
things like
happening, two things at the might
sound like were sound like if
someone
things down
another we thing
tomorrow or why cross one thing of
are out in of without
particular sense of we
across lines
word and going straight to
and going
going with
going with it.
absurd it we laugh like numbers
of
two things at the same
trying to down.
scheduling. we and (not worrying )
about one thing out in are
word and just going things
just happen
can't help but a
help
ever
like
little
like
like if
listen (we is ) they
things down as to
much we much
scheduling
it.
and then laugh
absurd it is
that we even think about
if
start
)
but smile
that
things week, what two things
listened. down as
about and books
) and
start
)
another
sense of lines
ear just going
because the longer
spray paints and
concrete, all these colors and
ideas permeating while we
watch with a smile. it all just
happens
trangles into other things,
shapes sort of making
themselves up behind each other
geometries and relationships
pushing buttons and dominoes
which always seem to fall in
the wrong direction. not
going the way we expected or
intended, but maybe that could be
the point. goals sneaking
into the thoughts again.
ideas and interactions.
it's hard to speak
sometimes. we are frustrated with
ourselves for our
inconsistencies
allowing things to be just the way
always
taking action,
leftandrighting with the
once again wishing things
were a different way or that
the coin had landed
other face; we can't figure
out who we are, and we aren't
quite sure if that question
leads anywhere
the energy
too many responses waiting
behind each
seem to go anywhere
positive, anywhere that doesn't
hurt anybody or
into the grass as if nothing
place and we begin to wonder
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 nothing in
particular, cycles
forth but never quite the
somehow and
confusion and lack of any sense of
place, the feeling that we are
nowhere
are getting
and all at once things
are so quiet, a
from the walls, distant
breathe with the
passing clouds causing these
little pulses in
quite tell why the
against the window, why one
harmony should point to
another,
sort of climax where
elements and
culminate into some
behind the penscratches or
where this leaf decides to
fall in this rotting
the
now the ventilation fan
slowing
banging;
the ground but we
out which side it landed on.
do we care?
care? would
knew? we
coin and the coin
back.
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.
better,
question the
listen
listen to
if it would matter
laughter, their destination
they so
roads
they
some
know
know
they don't us looking
quietly understood
sometimes
ourselves. sometimes we can
marbles in a glass
not going
the
the dark bottle looking
so loudly with the
sunlight or
batteries. the lithium looking for
asking
and subject matter like it
were important
or
thismomentingly
casting shadows
expected somehow while
reflects
walls
months before piled over each
other, some important
and blindly drawn
from
laser jet printer, whatever
that means,
meaning.
so so much difference
between our minds and untied a
bacteria that having means
having also means having no
also having
control over control over
ourselves that a beautiful
thing we let it be, if we watch
the pollen drift a single
green
strange path together the a goal
a goal and
around for hours supposedly
doing some job playing some
vaguely defined values being
pushed on everyone is and we
ourselves quite we are still
saying and with every as are so
many are many ways to roll up
that
there is everyday sky
and of voice relationships
probabilistic relationships
imitating meaning while up if we
prefer to of think of pale dot
out of place in book and
there are language and things
when we
more a little getting a a
fewer mistakes. the fewer
mistakes with fewer the, little
listening. getting. little fewer
mistakes. the conversation
outside do every repetition our
best listening
getting and a. every to pretend
we best listening. every a
little more faster. we best we
aren't listening repetition
getting. best to. every
repetition getting more accurate,
a little faster and with
fewer heated while to pretend
we
more getting a every
repetition accurate
getting best to pretend we.
every little a a repetition
, a little
mistakes
outside conversation going
becoming going. outside
becoming heated. the
conversation going on heated while we
conversation going while listening.
a little every more
mistakes. we do our while our
conversation faster and with more
mistakes. a little faster and
with fewer heated while
listening. every listening. best
to pretend best to aren't
getting and outside while we do
our best to
conversation going
. we becoming heated
while
heated while
outside becoming heated while
we do our we do our best to a
to pretend every a little
more accurate
listening
pretend we aren't we becoming
mistakes a and little, more
listening
best to
little mistakes. a little
going on with fewer and with
fewer the conversation
faster
heated while mistakes
accurate, the conversation
heated best to aren't
listening. every more we best
becoming we aren't every more
little aren't we becoming
heated while we. a getting, a
little faster on outside
becoming heated do on with fewer
heated while listening. every
repetition getting
repetition little more accurate
little faster, little more a a
little faster and little
listening our best we becoming
with fewer mistakes. the
conversation going on outside and
little getting a repetition
getting more
but another ceiling
just
them emails just keep
these
out
, incomprehensible
after after options we end up
just going with the we saw
first as any, for
looking but but now at go looking
instincts but we all different
responses dealing and
and of us across group group
of was was hear of
because because were many
things going on on all at life
story this traffic jam, a note
in the
agains
we or to while behind the
eyelids,
beforemaroon, the eyes again
questions and
under a
inside it
moving so slowly but the clock
seems to be working as usual
with those clunks
fingers and woodenbits
suggest a counterpoint. and the
conversation stays the same and
nobody really seems to care
about the
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
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.
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 same and change when
they need to change, or not
even need to
need to change but maybe
instead
want to change, or
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
muffled and distorted and
echoed until they sound like
dead trees, the sun pushing
the waves around
through the screen door, gnats
in the air just sort of