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 42288.
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 42288
it is 2026. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
it things
things and
two things like
(we down so (not books and
start thinking we might for
breakfast tomorrow
thing
place of another writing
without any
particular with, just
the
it
and that how absurd about
and days of the
happening, what happening at what
if were to write worrying
down
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
in concrete, we begin to
feel jittery as we realize we
haven't stood up in hours, this
chair and
narrow, pressing against the
sides
and singulars not having so
much significance to us now
when the lights are
flickering so subtly. we pray but
don't know who we are praying
to
want. fading. fading.
the eyelids eyelids
eyelids, and underthere,
beforemaroon, the eyes again with
questions and ideas
color see under we we
the clock clock but the the
the so but the the clock
little fingers and woodenbits
of of of own somehow.
we
be warm enough
wooden walls the wooden
the wooden
could be but... spray
paints paints and colors. it
outlines outlines outlines
trangles up shapes themselves up
behind each things squares and
trangles into other each other
shapes sort up shapes each
other
in the not going the way.
but. that
again be, but not going the but
maybe that thoughts and
interactions interactions. spray
paints ideas and interactions
all ideas smile happens
squares and trangles into
behind relationships pushing
buttons the wrong direction to
fall in the wrong direction.
which
direction intended, point again
paints ideas spray, and and
ideas all just happens
outlines of squares of
geometries buttons always in
pushing to and seem going the way
. not expected or or or
intended, goals ideas
smile. we colors concrete
permeating while we watch with it
all into other things,
shapes shapes
. not always the
geometries buttons and in pushing
which not going the the way we
be. ideas and
interactions. spray paints and while
we concrete, all these
these these these colors
colors and we watch with a smile
things up behind each other
dominoes which in the going or
intended, but maybe expected or
intended,. not going the wrong we
the point. and
interactions.. spray ideas
permeating while a smile. and ideas
permeating
we wait for
and wonder
okay for us to ask now: "is
this beautiful?" we wonder
if nobody noticed and we
watch the air just
around through the leaves. we
take another breath with the
sunlight and
throughs
behindingly the now nowing while
again the time continues and
stops and
circles of ink
and and that seems as
looking our instincts but all
smiling we don't know one
amplifying people was funny
because many things going on all
a single car in this
different in the piano.. maybe if
if there was more time.
the just keep arriving and
keep arriving and to be from
these
some incomprehensible tree
, entire stories
incomprehensible
options impossible
end up
one
and laugh, and laugh and
laugh are so aimless in the
when it seems like every or
new so, is so, much more so
much ears which is so so so, so
so, good with at the moment
. and, laugh what if or if
that changes
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
singing.
because the
stare at the details, the less
we are
matter.
silence and
small voice humming and
laughing in the other room. a
behinds toward while again
around where's or
leftandright shrinking silently. a
wooden creak. a scratch. all
centers
around, things just happening
and just being the way they
are.
is a beautiful thing. that
this is a beautiful
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
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
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
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 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 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
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
sleep again, this time with a
strange smile and already
looking forward to coffee. this
time with socks and a
blanket. this time with the
windows open: and in comes the
cooler air.
the smell of damp sticks
everything
remember
don't. “can it stay like
for a while?” and, for once,
it does.
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
starts laughing, and we are all
laughing and the paper is
laughing and the inkdots are
laughing: the numbers are
laughing too.
the corner of the
smile. the moments going and
going in such a beautiful way
that we can't take our eyes
off it, noticing just how
inconsistent things are, how blurry
and arbitrary the
differences seem between things
people and ideas, how
painting can sound
seems to dry.
breathe with
little pulses in the sunglow
and somehow we feel
toes even
quite tell
against
harmony
another,
elements and trajectories
culminate into some bigger thing
as
there all along as if
were some kind of purpose
behind the penscratches or
where this leaf
notice a pain in our lower
strange sense
now the
slowing down into a
banging;
out which
care? would it matter if we
coin and the
back.
we accidentally
imagine
a head this strangely
shaped box or
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 minute, and then
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
and we are both these
strange wooden boxes attached
to bodies, heads without
eyes which still say so much,
eyes without laughinglines
to
behind our
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 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
lead to other things, and
sometimes they don't, and
sometimes things just happen and
they keep just happening
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
get frustrated and start to
do things we don't want to
do,
for things nobody had
control over
and jumping
and
about other people and their
intentions
what they are afraid of.
forget that they are
their grip is getting
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
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing.
and wood is so, how
squirrels trees turn their. in
turn out of a without without
another, facts falling, the
we keep of while from other
notice every, how sun landing
on the room can somehow
feel for a think about are but
somehow we don't care perfectly
okay because caring about us
more happy human is glowing
and going, the a smiling in
an everything around what
is sort of eyes and into
energy which pushes bits of
dust trees of end to be part
without punchline sentence.
these clinging glue, the
opinions and facts
and the smiles, the the
keeps our going we can't every
all us is paper and how
glowing we it on moment
think anything we care. don't
care and that's perfectly
because caring about have feel
more human, more laughing on
our blood is glowing our
skin and keeps going the wind
pushing trees and we keep for the
around turning away,
floorboards and into pushes bits
dust,
cars if in the out to
a last sentence these
bricks clinging one another
with rock glue, and facts
falling into the the screams,
timer not to voices notice the
temperature changing every moment
all around sun paper whole
room is glowing
anything if things are but
that's about made feel more our
arm the music,, and we keep
an we are around us for what
doing, of us in the eyes
without turning away energy
which bits why cars turn if in
will all be part of a,
clinging to one another one same
the fists and
pretending not to going on
themselves while we hear
temperature changing every how and
the and we our a moment
repeating we don't don't care
never have made us the arm is
glowing the music just keeps
going pushing trees around
little, and we keep smiling are
able to object the. these
eyes and into kind of
it's hard to speak
sometimes. we are frustrated with
ourselves for our
they are and want to be,
always taking action and never
taking action,
leftandrighting with the
once again wishing
were a different way or
the coin had landed on the
other face; we can't figure
out who
leads anywhere
the
behind each option which never
seem to go
positive, anywhere that doesn't
hurt anybody or dissipate
had happened in the first
place and
anything actually did or does
happen or if we had somehow just
thought
of desperation and
particular, cycles going back and
forth but never quite the same
way,
somehow and adding
confusion and lack of
place, the feeling that
are getting nowhere.
we can't lines remember
that
questions. laughing breathe. we
forget to ask questions how
isn't it funny how it funny but
smile when the but the sun
starts coming remember names
we can't can't names we
can't so lines.
remember that the stick of the
stick incense is still
somehow becoming breathe
listening while
outside becoming
while we best to pretend every
repetition getting we aren't every
repetition getting a accurate, a
little faster and
getting a every
little going on outside
becoming our we
our
outside going on outside
mistakes
going on the conversation.
with conversation heated.
the fewer accurate, a
accurate aren't accurate,
little more accurate. outside
becoming we do the conversation
going on outside becoming
heated fewer mistakes. the
faster,
faster and with little
accurate, a little faster, more
outside going. the, a little
mistakes on outside becoming on
outside conversation and with
fewer mistakes. little
faster a little faster a more
accurate
accurate every repetition
getting a little more accurate,
every to a little more
accurate, listening. every
repetition getting a little aren't
listening, a little a repetition
getting best to pretend while
the conversation
accurate,
with
outside fewer mistakes on
outside
fewer mistakes and with fewer
going the conversation
mistakes.
going on the, repetition
little little faster and
little with fewer heated while
becoming heated while we do our on
the becoming going on
outside becoming we do we aren't
we do on the on we do our best
to becoming on the faster
and outside mistakes.
fewer faster on outside
becoming
becoming going. little faster
and the on we do our best we.
every more faster fewer
mistakes conversation going
we do our best to becoming
with fewer mistakes, a
little
quietingly, the
softmurmurs not trying to say
anything
convince anyone of anything,
prefering
the way they are and stay the
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 change, or rather:
just happens. it just
happens, and it keeps just
happening. the softmurmers not
even speaking about what's
going on or
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 until they sound like
dead trees, the sun pushing
the waves around a little
in the air just sort of
we
make this
which keeps distracting us
a
leave
danger and
other people
below
care
even
should matter that
we
so
we never seem to notice
the changes until they've
already happened. or at
they are well into
happening.
the clouds
the sun coming out, the air
getting so
different
through
when whenever the
againagain
as
cottonfluff
sticks to our ink, and we ask
again
from. a million coins being
thrown every
terrifyingly wide staring us in the
eye
look away
little
landing, and flying around
again. flying,
, on or untied tangled or
off a remember the
means having also ourselves,
our thoughts that this is a
beautiful
, let watch the ground,
speck green crowd and
completely separate crowd the
crowd and the same time in
falling in the falling just
falling around for hours
supposedly around for standing
around for society call
society, vaguely, society,
everyone even when or why why are
saying or why saying or
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
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.
roads enormous statues
of
these up we
so
anything. looking away and
happens
we
we sun
okay, and one to
sometimes it
happens that go from
other without things are are
sometimes they are and
it and
one to and okay
and
without from
trying. and sometimes things
even even trying are go are
not okay and it one to the
other without even okay
sometimes to and sometimes, and
happens sometimes it they we
without without okay
without even sometimes
are happens that from the
other sometimes things are
not and sometimes
they
without even and
things they are, and it we go
from one
other
it
from one
things,, and sometimes we
one
sometimes
sometimes they are are go
trying., it it from one one to
the are
without even
are
and, and
not going
particular seeming to
the
melodies, their
the dark bottle looking
right back, eyes glimmering
so
flickerings
batteries. the lithium looking for
asking between colorshades
and subject matter
were
or
or anothersong
thismomentingly
casting
expected somehow while the
reflects in its own color
walls
months
other,
so much,
paintings
from an old
meaning.
hear we hear
not
one which and
making
harmony
windchimes buzzing
more okay
remember make shout
with fewer words, us scream
with our fingers and pound
wood splintering is the wood
is
splintering here there to time or
that again this time again
and
here keep keep making their
never could time we couldn't
answer couldn't and instead
only become at
throw with shouting with
bulging veins fists again again
against the again against the
again the door the door the
door not even, the door with
the idea the why flicker
like something is burning so
we all we all
remember try to remember what we
had
attempts attempts to remember
make us remember words with
fewer our
while and harder harder the
harder on the door door while
the or that
again did we questions as
mouths learn couldn't answer
and last we time we couldn't
time we time we time we
couldn't and instead things at
the things at at and began
began to throw things
,, fists fists again and
again the other side
why flicker
to remember what kitchen
we had but we can't
remember,, and even attempts to
remember make even the attempts
shout fewer fewer, us make
words, make us pound harder
and harder on on and pound
harder with our fingers and
harder the there the appears
this time again how which
keep making as if we never
could never our mouths as
never last time we couldn't
answer and instead only become
more unhappy and began throw
red face red, fists
and
caught being being and and the
smell like something burning
we we try remember what we
all we remember what
kitchen last but kitchen
remember, and make scream with
our with
harder is here and there or
again did we get keep making if
we the last more at
screaming and face
red and what's with with
caught
another
like something is to
remember what remember what the
in the what we remember
what we had done in the
kitchen last we last we but we
can't
the attempts to
door while
we keep asking
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
paper and everybody in the
world began to read them out
loud all at the
then
and the poems went flying
the air all around and
everybody just watched it happen
in complete silence
can't help but smile a little,
and
hugs the
left and we all begin to
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
there are so many confusing
and beautiful things all
around us anyway. we just keep
laughing and grabbing poems
of the air, sometimes
deciding to read them and
othertimes using them as napkins.
the wind, the wind is
laughing too.