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 6108716.
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 6108716
it is 2026. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
it's
sometimes. we are frustrated with
ourselves for our
inconsistencies
allowing things to be just the way
they are and want to be,
always taking action and never
taking action,
leftandrighting with
once again wishing things
were
the coin had landed on the
other face; we can't figure
out who we
quite sure if that
leads anywhere
the energy to say anything,
too many responses waiting
behind each option which never
seem to go anywhere
positive, anywhere that doesn't
hurt anybody or dissipate
into the grass
had
place and we begin to wonder if
anything actually did or does
thought it all up out of some kind
of desperation and
particular, cycles going back and
forth but never
way,
somehow and adding to
confusion and lack of any sense of
place, the feeling that
nowhere and
are getting nowhere.
systems
and
breaking apart piece by piece as
we keep trying to glue
things back together with
architectures in the mind and and
in concrete, we begin to
feel jittery as we realize we
haven't stood up in hours, this
chair and its
narrow, pressing against the
sides of our skulls, plurals
and singulars not having
much significance to us now
when the lights are
flickering so subtly. we pray but
don't
to
want. fading. fading.
to. our
we to pretend little fewer
mistakes. fewer mistakes while
we do our
aren't every repetition
faster fewer
becoming
aren't
getting a repetition getting a
little faster and mistakes.
the mistakes on
conversation and a accurate. best to
pretend our best
little more accurate little
faster and more listening.
every repetition listening.
every repetition getting a
little aren't listening.
aren't listening. every
little getting a little more
accurate little faster and with
outside becoming going
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 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
happens, and it keeps just
happening. the softmurmers not
even speaking about what's
going on or what's not going on
but
mentioning about whatever is on
their mind at that moment,
the sound waves not
disappearing but echoing off a
thousand surfaces and every
blade of grass, split and
muffled and distorted and
echoed until
dead trees, the sun pushing
the waves around a
through the screen door, gnats
in the air just sort of
moving around.
isn't. the if.
seeming like and keep arriving
we
least
instincts but we don't remember
ways ways
smiling smiling and
people
was funny joke half of
there things going
hear half on
this
traffic a a different different
story story going many things
going, in this jam every more
there was more time time.
there. just just keep emails
and keep arriving and to
people,
incomprehensible
weigh.. we end up just just for
we go looking as any
saw
circumstances circumstances
circumstances dealing smiling
smiling. because
group of they even hear things
different life story car in
different. maybe if there was was
more
keep arriving of them from
real people, all
situations entire stories
options
weigh
we up we
least we
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
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.
we
make us happy, what would
leave the
when we go
though
hazard and
danger and the lives of all the
other people
below
we
even
them to.
should matter that
we care. and everything
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 passenger
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
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
strange wooden boxes
to bodies, heads without
eyes which still
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 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
beautiful it is and how funny
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 other things, and
sometimes they don't, and
sometimes things just happen and
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
get frustrated and start to
do
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
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
that we are all the same
person born into different
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing.
windows now our hands
sensation in
in the they
and walls wooden
scratch on lot
behind the desk happened
our eyes for a
floating outside outside
outside our bodies
foreheads, enough
stinging dents in the
floorboard came and where
each
purpose of if
close
we keep
questions like “will this make me
happy?” when instead it might be
more interesting to ask what
it would sound like if the
leaves on every tree were poems
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
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
left and we all begin to
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
the answers
there are so many confusing
and beautiful things all
around us anyway. we just keep
laughing and grabbing poems out
of the air, sometimes
deciding to read them and
othertimes using them as napkins.
the wind, the wind is
laughing too.
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 listen to the sounds
of all
conversation,
destination
the
back and forth
leaving
collapse and fade
and
do
in a cloud of
from, whether
or
could
maybe the leaves decided or
grid patterns come up
below.
they
they
that sometimes it's
just
sometimes we
and they
if
isn't
sun is
our
we notice how
hair looks
moves
different shapes.
remains perfectly
might
a word
wouldn't
or execution
for a moment, and
we close our eyes
listen to the wind and
our legs. we wonder what
could come from this
wonder
couldn't prepare us for
because the longer we
stare at the details, the less
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 from
the last
answer and instead only become
more unhappy and began to
throw things at the walls with
some inexpressible anger
screaming and shouting with a
face and bulging veins,
fists again and again against
the door not even caring
what's on the other side, too
caught
place
if causing the lights to
flicker and the
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 fewer
words, make us scream with our
fingers and pound harder
harder on the door while the
wood is splintering here and
there
appears to
that time
and
we
the changes until they've
already happened. or at least
they are well into
happening.
the clouds
getting so slightly warmer; a
different
through before
when whenever
againagain the words repeatingly
as we notice a little
cottonfluff drifting toward us. it
sticks
again where meaning comes
from. a million coins being
thrown every instant, fields
of possibility so
terrifyingly wide staring us in the
eye so intensely we have to
look away
little bug just flying around,
landing,
flying around again.
glowing just keeps
going around a keep smiling
are able to see for what
every, how air just of moves
around. these in turning away
some pushes wonder wood
quickly how wonder if turn out be
joke a story these bricks
clinging to another falling into
the
temperature sun is and how the whole
room our
caring about that
silence and quiet now. a
small voice
laughing in the other room. a
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 realize that this
is a beautiful thing. that
this is a beautiful thing.
keeps making
sound of
of
windchimes
making
. but feel not
warmer
.
the
more quiet every
aware
crackling, we
breathe for
allergies. a.
recognize
we hear
and
the corner of the
empty except for
grooves in
smile. the moments going and
going in such a beautiful way
that we can't take
off it, noticing just how
inconsistent things are, how blurry
and arbitrary the
differences seem between
people and ideas, how musical a
painting can
seems to dry.
, spray paints and while
we smile and and trangles
outlines of squares things,
shapes sort up up sort up behind
relationships pushing buttons
in always in the wrong seem
to fall we expected or be
the into maybe that could be
sneaking sneaking into the
interactions again goals thoughts
and concrete, all ideas
into the paints paints
paints
marbles in a
the birds get their
melodies, their strange rhythms
tinkling or
right
so
sunlight or fluorescent
flickerings or
asking between
or
thismomentingly
expected somehow while the
walls and
surface, papers scattered from
other, some important some not
so
and blindly
paintings and
from
laser jet printer, whatever
meaning.
agains the
we or to while
eyelids, and underthere, a
beforemaroon, the eyes again with
questions and ideas
under a color when
moving so slowly
with those clunks and little
fingers and
suggest a
conversation stays the same and
nobody really seems to care
about the wind.
galaxies themselves
are asking questions
themselves that the hurtling
toward, for thumpingly
against, and growing, shapes of
might make. we that things
have left just as they is
another sort of illusion
another sort which don't
difference temperature actions
and the temperature
outside the temperature and
difference between
shoelaces
control that
also ourselves, thoughts,
our and that this that and it
the watch the strange time
going and path standing
around for hours standing
around
we wait
and wonder if
okay for us
this
watch the air just sort of move
around through
throughs
behindingly the
stops and continues 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?"
window creaking under winds,
some oil spilled in a parking
lot.
who's before and after
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
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
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,
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 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 time with the
windows open: and in comes the
cooler air.
from the walls,
clanging of a ventilation fan. we
passing clouds
toes
quite tell why the wind
chooses the
against
harmony should point to
another, why
sort of climax where
elements and trajectories
culminate into
there all along as
were some kind of
notice a pain in
from
strange sense of pressure
the bottom
now the ventilation fan
slowing down
banging; we notice a
the ground but
out which
do we care? is it
care?
knew? we are staring at the
coin
back.
with it and
help
about it of the week,
things happening someone were
sound
suspect nobody and
scheduling
with, just and going to a
word which to
ear
going
help
laugh it that
suspect nobody is they trying to
things were
scheduling and books
) about
another
lines one scratchy
which
happen somehow that but smile a
is ever things ever even
think about things days of
the smell of damp
from outside. a slowmoving
sound. we notice how
everything is so pink
don't.
for
it does.
and it one
and sometimes
and
are not that we go from one
and sometimes things even
. and not okay
, and
sometimes,
and sometimes to
without
the and they,,
and
sometimes sometimes,
sometimes they happens
sometimes.
trying. and
sometimes without even okay they
happens that
without even even trying
sometimes they
trying
to the
sometimes
even okay, and happens
it we go are
from to the
not. sometimes
not
that
without they they
without
things are they and
it other other without
even sometimes things not
it
how starts coming back
right on the smile the the
funny how
breathe and we breathe. we to ask
questions. laughing isn't it
funny how we
whose names names remember
remember many
incense smoke somehow becoming
smoke in
ask. laughing laughing!!
we laughing how can't help
but but smile the the sun
starts
lines and we remember
remember that is still glowing
and and somehow becoming
smoke in our lungs and we. we
funny
funny how can't help but smile
new question a second
which much more why think of a
good able to and we laugh
laugh we wonder. we. we wonder
what might changed over
actually nothing the idea
changes and we ask ourselves an
question return we don't know.
and, and laugh. can't the in
every minute or second comes
ears which is like at or how
are able to, laugh, and we
and we laugh. we what or
these
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.