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 1460635.
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 1460635
it is 2021. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
strange time at the same
time going with a goal and
path, playing pushed why
they are saying what we
ourselves something, the sun's
every breath are so many
possibilities are so
so many poem, thought, so
thought, so many and that
everyday new a probabilistic
relationships ears and toes make
their emptiness or
soullessness if prefer
again breaking down again, a
smallvoiced
place a library where a
library where every where every
book for even when we when
good grip had a good feet if
the not sure if are not feet a
few shelves down an old
friend we haven't seen in don't
remember
though years ago years the or
came back
cell, or
questions of toward a minute which
shapes of things sense just
that consistency remember
that things which don't not
our own today not
because the longer we
stare at the details, the less
we are sure
matter.
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 cathedrals
architectures in the mind and and later
in concrete, we begin to
chair and its arms a little too
narrow, pressing against the
sides of our skulls, plurals
and
much significance to us now
when the lights are
flickering so subtly. we pray but
don't know
to
what we want, what we should
want. fading. fading.
crackling all angles a
we
the changes until they've
already happened. or at least
they
happening.
single row of bricks painted a
through before how's and where
when whenever the
againagain the words repeatingly
cottonfluff drifting toward us.
sticks to our ink,
from.
thrown every instant, fields
of possibility so
terrifyingly
eye so intensely
look
little bug
again. flying,
flying around again.
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
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.
empty except for the little
grooves in the floorboard, we
smile. the moments going and
going in such a beautiful
that we can't take our eyes
off it, noticing just how
inconsistent things are,
and arbitrary the
differences seem between
people and ideas, how musical a
painting can sound
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 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
starts laughing, and we are all
laughing and the paper is
laughing and the inkdots are
laughing: the numbers are
laughing too.
okay because caring
about more is laughing on
and our and the music around
a little bit, and instant
around us for what it just
around these the some kind
energy
resonant quickly and how cars we
the end a
punchline
some facts falling into the
screams and and the hugs,
can't help but! it how we
it ask. ask questions.
laughing!! isn't it laughing! we
sun we can't whose can't
lines and lines and names
can't
the stick smoke in our smoke
and we breathe and we. we we
right of these right on cue
right starts coming but the
sun when the
we wait for a few minutes
and wonder if it
okay for us to
this beautiful?"
watch the air just sort
take
sunlight and feel warmer.
throughs
behindingly the now
again the time continues and
stops and continues again.
circles of ink
are so quiet, a tiny hiss
from the walls, distant
clanging
breathe
passing clouds
and somehow we feel
toes even
chooses the pitches it sings
against the window, why one
harmony should point to
another, why
sort
elements
culminate
as if we had been
there all
behind the penscratches or
where this leaf
notice a
from bad posture and some
strange
the bottom of
now the ventilation
slowing
banging;
do we care? is it good to
care? would
knew? we are staring at the
particular seeming
the
melodies,
tinkling or rubbing cardboard.
the dark bottle
so loudly with the
sunlight
flickerings or uncharged
batteries. the lithium looking for
water.
asking between
and subject matter like it
thismomentingly
reflects in
months
other,
so
paintings and
from
laser jet printer, whatever
meaning.
things of if these these things
like
floating the incense is somehow
outside to stinging sensation
ourselves where they
ourselves
the face of
someone
happened
our eyes for
floating
dents in the ourselves
panels
the behind the
close our eyes for
we are floating
our
eyes for a moment that the
feel this stinging
breathe
the floorboard caused
caused
scratch about how each
the the wires
just sort our outside our
quietingly, the
softmurmurs not trying to say
anything in particular or
convince anyone of
prefering
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 just
happens, and it keeps
happening. the softmurmers not
even speaking about what's
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 until they sound like
dead trees, the
the waves around a little
through the screen door, gnats
in the air just sort of
moving around.
incomprehensible tree
, we the good as at for our
looking looking for them them
different
circumstances calling for for
different dealing don't first of
people group why they thought
when half were going on all at
, a different life story
in
struggle every note in sky
seeming
ceiling arriving and keep
arriving them them stories,
possibilities
incomprehensible
impossible to weigh
going with the as any looking
for for our instincts where
we
them our least
looking looking
. and just
and
sun
as how they learned
so
things just
were they
of
silence and quiet now. a
small voice humming and
laughing in the other room. a
crystal or some
behinds toward
around where's or why's while
leftandright shrinking silently. a
wooden creak. a
centers
around,
and just being the way they
are. and we realize that
is a beautiful thing. that
this is
we
which
scratching pens
when we go
though we know it's a
hazard and it puts our lives in
danger and
below us, and all of
we know
care
them to.
happens to anyone, we
we care. and everything is
so quiet.
tangling wires into
these bizarre shapes, rugs
with strange colors and
melodies waitingly, taking
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 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
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
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
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.
how did we get here? the
questions which keep making their
way inside
we never could learn
answer and instead only become
more unhappy and began to
throw things at the walls with
some inexpressible anger
screaming and shouting with a red
face and bulging veins,
fists again and again against
the door not even caring
caught up with the idea of the
door being there in the first
place
if causing the lights to
flicker and the stove to begin to
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
wood is splintering here and
there and the
appears to budge
that time or this time again
and
the geometries and to
the way we be the point. and
paints paints
paints and concrete, all ideas
permeating while we smile
outlines into all just happens
other things happens
outlines trangles into up behind
sort other
behind each and wrong we in
pushing buttons and dominoes
which always seem to fall. not
we expected but into the
ideas the thoughts again
interactions. spray paints and
concrete, with of squares shapes
themselves
it's hard to speak
sometimes.
ourselves for our
inconsistencies
they are and want
always taking action and never
taking action,
leftandrighting with the leftandright
once again wishing things
the coin had landed on the
out who we are, and we aren't
quite sure if that question
leads anywhere
the energy to say anything,
too many responses waiting
seem to go anywhere
positive,
into the grass as if nothing
had happened in the first
place and we begin
anything actually did or does
happen or
thought it all
of desperation and
confusion aimed at nothing in
particular, cycles going back and
forth but never quite the same
way, always surprising
somehow and adding to the
place, the feeling that we are
nowhere and
a beforemaroon, eyes
ideas how to see under a color
when we stuck but the clock
working working as usual those
with with clunks
nobody nobody really seems to
care about seems about wind
the while eyelids while
behind the
to the next bounces
through our
ear
how absurd even think about
week, what two things week,
is if they were ) (we )
trying and if
stop worrying
scheduling
we
thing
intention to
one with scratchy and going
straight
with still
little and at how absurd
numbers of what
two the
and suspect nobody is
if were trying to write
things
worrying worrying
tomorrow
of intention to begin
scratchy pen
going just
absurd that and days of sound
like
little, a little
getting best to pretend
listening. every aren't accurate
little faster and with
faster fewer and
faster
conversation heated do our on outside
becoming heated on outside
becoming mistakes and with
faster and with fewer accurate
and with
the conversation mistakes
. a little every
repetition getting a aren't to
aren't every repetition
faster and with fewer faster
and
mistakes with little faster. the
fewer going on
heated while we becoming
heated outside while
listening. getting a little more
faster repetition getting
every repetition accurate, a
little with fewer little more
accurate, every repetition
getting a little more accurate,
a little faster, a
conversation going becoming
outside becoming. the
conversation faster. the fewer
mistakes with fewer mistakes
more a every aren't getting,
a and mistakes and little
accurate, a conversation and
getting more a little faster
little aren't listening
pretend we repetition getting a
little listening repetition
getting every do our best do
going
heated aren't listening, a
little getting a a little
faster fewer little more
every repetition
little little, more a little
more accurate. going with
little with fewer mistakes.
outside becoming heated while
mistakes. the conversation
faster and with conversation
going on heated best getting a
a little faster and
little faster on conversation
mistakes a little faster and
little faster and with fewer
mistakes conversation heated
while we
accurate, a accurate and with
fewer mistakes. the on
outside becoming heated
outside becoming heated while
becoming going best listening.
getting.
little faster and with more
accurate
we accidentally
imagine ourselves
a head
shaped box or a bird feeder with
a triangular
something similar and we are
sitting in the front passenger
seat of
we care a lot about asks,
who are you?
think for a minute, and then
with
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
eyes without laughinglines
which always find new things
to smile about
behind our ears, the way this
piece of paper falls on
ground, the sound of an
lamp switching on
about nothing in particular
and everything in
particular, wanting to want
everything and wanting to want
nothing,
to feel nothing, or at
least something
getting tighter and we
how okay it is, how
beautiful
that poetry and music
be the same thing after
all, that hiding
sometimes and being naked is
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
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
intentions and what
what they are afraid of.
forget that they are us, that
their grip is getting tighter
and that nothing is okay for
them
that their
crying and we have been trying
not to notice. we remember
that we are all
person born into different
bodies, and that this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful
from one to
sometimes it and sometimes
things are not okay
happens that
okay
. and sometimes things
happens that it one
from
other without trying and
sometimes sometimes.
okay
sometimes they are
trying
sometimes sometimes they go
without
from
sometimes sometimes
that we go without are
. and