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 5880824.
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 5880824
it is 2020. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
it trying okay,
go from one to and and they
are, and
the the
that sometimes not things
and sometimes sometimes
and sometimes it
without even, they
without even
are they,
are are not
happens we go from one to the
trying
sometimes it and sometimes even
and sometimes not
sometimes
sometimes trying.
things,
and sometimes it one
to the,
sometimes and are from are not okay
, and sometimes they are
sometimes they
from one to the other. and
sometimes sometimes we to,
we even trying, and
sometimes they are, happens the
even they
okay,
even
things sometimes
other without even are
even trying.
are not okay
the
from
that from
other
sometimes
they, from one to the other
without and trying not we the
other to the
even trying things are
we go things,
sometimes
and all at once things
are so quiet, a tiny hiss
from the walls,
little pulses in the sunglow
and somehow we feel it in our
toes even though we
quite tell why the wind
chooses
against the window, why one
harmony should point to
sort of climax where
elements and trajectories
culminate into some bigger thing
there all along as if there
behind the
where this leaf
fall in this rotting pile
from bad posture and
strange sense of pressure from
the bottom of our right foot
now the ventilation fan
slowing
banging; we notice a coin lying on
out which side it landed on.
care? would it
coin
back.
new color in the of
garbage of probabilistic or
soullessness think
grain of a library and a
different a we good feet is down is
old friend we haven't time
the phone left phone
remember on
remember that the questions they
are hurtling toward,
wondering
momentnow shapes never to never
leading to. we that make sense be
left just as they happen
remember sort of don't not so much
and difference between our
minds our shoelaces tied off
or tangled fungi
over ourselves, ourselves,
control over ourselves, our is a
this is a beautiful thing
beautiful
to the ground, following
strange path
standing, supposedly doing some
thing we call society,
vaguely defined values being
values being when we anyone is
it and are saying why or it
we belly still rising it
every our
to aware of
actions but try not
the thisthat
crackling and the
keep keep sound
sniffling from don't recognize
help but sort of sort
making
again and
the of
windchimes
chests and making buzzing
or combination
the changes until they've
already happened. or at least
they are well into
happening. we wonder why that is:
the clouds
getting
single row of bricks painted a
different color. who the behinds
through before how's and where
when whenever the
againagain
as we notice a little
cottonfluff drifting toward
sticks to our ink, and we
again where meaning comes
from. a million coins
thrown every instant, fields
of possibility
terrifyingly wide staring us in
look
little bug just flying around,
landing, and flying around
again. flying, landing, and
flying around again.
marbles in a
not going anywhere in
particular seeming to wonder
the
melodies,
tinkling
the dark bottle looking
right back, eyes glimmering
so loudly with
sunlight
flickerings
batteries. the
asking
were
or
or
expected somehow while the light
reflects in its
months before
other,
so much,
and
paintings and
laser jet printer, whatever
that means, whatever those
meaning.
agains the wayingsong a
we
eyelids, and underthere, a
beforemaroon, the eyes again with
questions and ideas
under
inside it
fingers and woodenbits
conversation stays the same
nobody really seems to care
about the
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
in return: “who are you?”
and we are unable to answer.
we don't know. and then we
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
are able to read bad
handwriting. we laugh, and we laugh,
the smell of damp sticks
from outside. a slowmoving
sound. we notice how
everything
remember why, but for now we
for a
it does.
tangling wires into
these bizarre shapes, rugs
with strange colors and
melodies waitingly, taking deep
breaths before the speech where
we finally
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
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 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
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.
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.
make
scratching
leave the incense burning
when
though we know it's a fire
hazard and
danger and
other people living
below us,
we know
care about what happens to us
even though we
them
happens
we care. and everything is
so quiet.
it's hard to speak
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 the leftandright
once again wishing things
were
the coin had landed on the
other face; we can't figure
out who
quite sure if that question
leads
the energy
too many responses waiting
behind each option which never
seem to go anywhere
positive,
hurt anybody or dissipate
into the grass as if
had
place and we begin to wonder
anything actually did or does
happen or if we
thought it
of desperation and
confusion aimed at nothing in
particular, cycles going back and
forth but never
way, always surprising
somehow and adding to the
confusion and lack of any sense of
place, the feeling that we are
nowhere and the feeling
are getting nowhere.
and wonder if it
okay for us to ask
this beautiful?" we wonder
if
watch the
take another
throughs and arounds
behindingly the now
stops and continues again.
systems all around us
and our lives fracturing
breaking apart piece by piece as
things back together with
words and theories and poems
and cathedrals
architectures in the mind and and later
in
feel jittery as
haven't stood up in hours, this
chair and its arms a little too
narrow, pressing against the
sides of our skulls, plurals
and singulars
much significance to us now
when the lights are
flickering so subtly. we pray but
don't know who we are praying
to
what we
want. fading. fading.
quietingly, the
softmurmurs not trying to say
anything in particular or
convince anyone of anything,
prefering to let things just exist
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 just
happens, and it keeps just
happening. the softmurmers not
even speaking about what's
going on or
mentioning about whatever is on
their mind at that moment,
letting it out
the sound waves not
disappearing but echoing off a
thousand surfaces and every
blade of grass,
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.
of the week two
worrying scheduling (not
breakfast
we
scratchy pen
through still going that things
but
happening
sound nobody
listened
breakfast tomorrow might
breakfast we when we are
without
scratchy across
next ear
going happen somehow can't
help it is numbers and
the same time like if listen
is
place particular sense going
across pen
things just
suspect
somehow and we smile a little is
that
like numbers
and if
breathe now. open the
windows now. breathe our hands
now dents ourselves where
they what came
the wooden
every freckle of
every on
the face face face
knot behind the it
someone things just
it on
things just
somehow. a
eyes for a feel
foreheads the feel sensation in
where they they came
scrape along
our
the incense is somehow
might
. breathe this stinging
floorboard
floorboard and
scratch on the face freckle a
somehow our
the incense is
open windows stinging
sensation small
they came
floorboard came ourselves
purpose these
incense
foreheads warm open sensation and
we small
came from along
scrape
just sort of
our bodies,
somehow
this stinging
our small
small dents in they
each each wooden every
freckle
walls
of paint
silence and quiet now. a
laughing in the other room. a
behinds toward while again
around where's or why's while
leftandright shrinking silently. a
wooden creak.
centers
around, things just happening
and just being the way they
are.
is a beautiful thing. that
this is a beautiful thing.
we accidentally
imagine ourselves as having for
a head this strangely
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
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 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 about
behind our ears, the way
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
to feel nothing, or at
least something
getting
how okay it is,
beautiful
that poetry and music might
be the same thing after
all, that hiding is okay
sometimes and
too, that sometimes things
lead to other things, and
sometimes they
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
this and close our eyes and
smile a
this feels impossible. we
get frustrated and start to
do things we don't want to
do, blaming
for things nobody had
control over in the first
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,
their grip is getting
and
them either. we remember
that their boxy
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 thing. this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing.
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.
the expected or
intended, be the point.. ideas
ideas concrete. spray ideas,
all these watch with a a
smile squares just happens
outlines it ideas all and
trangles themselves up behind
each other
in in the wrong intended
intended, but expected but the
point. goals interactions
all these and concrete
colors and ideas permeating
while while a squares and
trangles
and and ideas with a
permeating permeating all just
happens squares smile colors
and ideas permeating while
we. and trangles into
making themselves up sort of
the pushing buttons wrong
could could intended, goals
thoughts. the the thoughts and
concrete. spray paints and we
watch with a all just happens
it outlines all just a
smile while a smile just
happens squares just happens
happens
just smile outlines shapes
sort of sort geometries and
and relationships seem to
and dominoes fall in the
buttons and and making
themselves up and fall in the or
intended, but maybe expected or
be the but be the point
point. goals sneaking again.
. ideas point.. goals
could thoughts thoughts and
interactions again interactions
again. ideas and
interactions. spray. ideas the
thoughts again. spray paints and
thoughts again goals sneaking
the point ideas and
interactions colors and. happens
smile. watch with a a smile
just
smile. it all into up behind
geometries buttons buttons always
seem seem to fall. not going
the intended the that the
thoughts thoughts goals. ideas
permeating while these smile while
it all a squares squares
other sort of making
themselves up
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
going to go that way too
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.
whose names can't
remember
remember many lines. we remember
that
of. we
stick of incense the stick
smoke somehow becoming smoke
in forget to. funny when
starts cue
we remember and we the
becoming smoke our smoke in our
questions how we can't shades on
many that stick incense is
and smoke in lungs
we forget forget to ask
laughing!
how it smile when the sun
starts right colors whose
these
whose cue when the cue
and we we
that the stick stick is still
that
when help when sun starts
coming back back on we and lines
can't remember
we
into we try
hand
somehow
wouldn't have
let it
listen
the corner of the room
empty except for the little
grooves in the floorboard, we
smile. the moments going and
going
that we can't take our eyes
off it, noticing just how
inconsistent things are, how blurry
and arbitrary the
differences seem
people and ideas, how musical a
painting can sound
seems to dry.
the the when there were
behind
every piano
the
ceiling. emails just ever all of
them
entire out
up one with the good as one
as any, least as go we don't
remember we go looking for go
looking our instincts but
don't but we our our instincts
but where we for
circumstances circumstances calling
for responses, different
and because why
smiled group know why they
thought hear of
different in the note in the piano
incomprehensible tree tree, options
after options impossible to
weigh. we the
looking looking for them.
different ways ways of dealing
. we because amplifying
across
they thought the joke it it
because there were all in on all
going on at once life traffic
jam behind
in the was more
but there
but there isn't. the sky
ceiling. emails isn't. the
isn't but there ceiling. and
keep
we are sure they even
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 and instead only become
more
throw things at the walls with
some inexpressible anger
screaming and
face and bulging veins,
fists again and again against
the door not even caring
what's on the other side,
caught up with the idea of the
door being there in the
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 shout with fewer
words, make us scream with our
fingers and pound harder and
harder on the
wood is splintering here and
there and the doorframe
appears to budge this time
that time or this time again
and again
our pretend we aren't
listening our best to pretend we
aren't do going the
conversation going on to our best we
aren't pretend we aren't to
pretend best to pretend our
repetition our while outside
becoming on conversation a
repetition getting
listening. our while
conversation our aren't listening we
aren't
getting. every repetition
little little with fewer, more
accurate
getting we aren't every a little
with fewer mistakes. going
on fewer the do going with
fewer accurate every do going
on outside going while
listening. every repetition
getting a little more accurate,
the mistakes. the
conversation going on outside
becoming heated while outside
going becoming heated
best we. every repetition
getting
repetition getting a little more
accurate. little more we aren't
listening, a little, a and with
fewer mistakes. the fewer
mistakes. accurate, with
a
we keep asking
questions like “will this make me
happy?” when instead it might be
more interesting to ask what
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 to blow
and the poems went flying in
the air all around and
everybody just watched it happen
in complete
can't help but smile a
and then a lot.
hugs the stranger to their
laugh. we ask ourselves
another question we can't hear
because of all
poems, and that's just fine
realize we didn't want
the answers anyway when
there are so many confusing
and beautiful things
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
not but don't would us more
like the arm and our blood is
the the wind bit and an we are
for is doing, of eyes by some
and makes resonant of
how cars we if
part without story without a
bricks one after another
opinions and and the and violins
the timer our. circles
around on voices from the can't
every moment all around us,
how the is and how the whole
room
don't think all we don't know
if themselves somehow
the wind keeps pushing
trees around a bit, and we keep
instant we around us for what it
is sort of,
some kind of bits why wood