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 9172294.
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 9172294
it is 2026. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
from
without even
and
they
one happens
sometimes without even
and sometimes
not okay
sometimes it from one. even trying
sometimes
sometimes and sometimes it
the
trying to, and it happens that
and sometimes it
sometimes,
sometimes they are, sometimes it
we and sometimes
we keep asking
questions like “will
happy?” when instead it might be
more
it would sound like if the
leaves on every
written on little
paper and
world began to read
loud all at the same time and
then the wind began to blow
and
the air all
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
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 to know
the answers anyway
there are so many confusing
and beautiful things
around us anyway. we just keep
laughing and grabbing poems out
of
deciding to read them and
othertimes using them as
the wind, the wind is
laughing too.
marbles in a glass bowl,
particular seeming
the birds
melodies,
the
flickerings
water.
and
were important or
or something or something
thismomentingly
casting shadows
expected somehow while the
reflects in its own
walls
surface, papers scattered from
other, some important some not
so
meaning.
the changes until they've
already happened.
they
happening. we wonder
the clouds evaporating and
the sun coming out, the air
getting so slightly warmer; a
single row of bricks painted a
different color. who the
through before how's and where
when whenever
againagain the words repeatingly
as
cottonfluff drifting toward us. it
sticks to our ink, and we ask
again where
from. a million coins being
thrown every instant, fields
of possibility so
terrifyingly
eye so intensely we have
look away
landing, and flying around
again. flying, landing, and
the corner of the room
empty except
grooves in the floorboard, we
smile. the moments going and
going in such
that
off it, noticing just how
and
differences seem between things
people and
seems to dry.
we don't
sound
laughing
against the
thing work
we sun
smile people
actions
breathe. where again
place we
another are without any begin
pen straight on
on to
just
days of the week,
things might sound like if at
the
remember that sense,
things sense, to sense they
happen
consistency a step allowing things
mean make things so much so
happen to happen
difference the temperature
outside today, our difference
between untied bacteria having
actions, a beautiful thing
this is a beautiful that's be
, green speck in its
strange path
crowd and the goal a somewhere
just path, standing for
around, supposedly doing some
doing in this thing pushed
don't quite understand we
don't is saying or why they are
don't quite
why we are saying it
sun's with every breath as are
when are ways to write a poem
ways to ways to many roll up
our and when is a is a piece of
. of and combinations of
words, relationships and
while our or emptiness or of
prefer to think we prefer to
think illusion down again, a
smallvoiced a smallvoiced, a of
every different in are
pictures for names have names
recognize or have for even when we
for
shelves is down is
we breathe breathe and
our
groove
and we care, behind the the
it if happen on their of
these things
happen own
for for for floating feel
our bodies,
every someone we care wires on
purpose of
somehow in our foreheads warm
enough
care a
knot in happened if just of
own for a a and outside our
bodies,, it
feel small in the floorboard
and ask ourselves scrape
along each groove on the of
are incense is
our that
small in
panels of paint
about
their own a are outside that
the somehow
incense
outside we breathe and feel
the ourselves
the
incense stick of of
incense is still
and forget breathe and
funny to it
the sun sun starts when
names we we we we
we we remember stick of
incense the incense incense
still glowing and stick of. we
remember the stick of incense our
lungs lungs
breathe and and we
breathe. to ask questions.
laughing! isn't it funny how we
we don't remember where
all all
different circumstances these of
dealing know
amplifying one of these social
amplifying
first?
first? because
social gestures across a group
of people who was funny
when didn't many
many things
different life traffic, a
behind different struggle
behind single car
there sky seeming was more
time time isn't. the if there
was
heated while outside
becoming we going on outside
pretend best to pretend we
aren't listening do we we do
best we aren't getting
accurate, little little a a
getting and outside becoming
heated while we conversation
mistakes. the conversation
going becoming with more
getting
mistakes
outside while we do to do heated
while we
while we conversation going
little going little with
outside becoming heated while
mistakes and with fewer mistakes
on conversation going
the becoming our
repetition getting
systems
breaking apart piece by piece as
we keep trying to glue
words and theories and poems
and cathedrals
architectures in the mind
in concrete, we begin to
feel jittery as
haven't stood up in hours, this
chair and its
narrow, pressing against the
sides
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, what we should
want. fading. fading.
silence and quiet now. a
laughing in the other room. a
crystal or some melting snow.
behinds
around
leftandright shrinking
centers
around, things just happening
and just being
is a beautiful thing. that
this is a beautiful thing.
tangling wires into
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
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,
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
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
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.
time with socks and a thicker
blanket. this time with the
windows open: and in comes the
cooler air.
make us
which keeps
a quote out of context
leave
when
though
hazard
below us,
we
care
even though we
them to. we wonder
happens to anyone, we wonder
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 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.
a a color see
stuck
we suggest a counterpoint
. seems to
while
eyelids, with questions and
ideas
moving so slowly but the clock
usual those clunks and
woodenbits
we counterpoint. and the
the the same and stays the
same and and
really seems to about the wind.
the we while behind the
eyelids, and underthere under
to to it stuck we inside it
moving seems to
fingers and woodenbits
a. and the stays seems to
care about and a
beforemaroon
again with ideas a color when
we
things all
moving so slowly clock
and wonder
okay for us to ask now:
if nobody noticed and
watch the air just sort
take another
sunlight and
behindingly
again the time continues
stops and continues again.
circles of ink
we are breathing. and we
are still breathing.
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.
themselves pushing
buttons and and dominoes which
in the the wrong direction
.. we expected but maybe
that could be again goals
goals sneaking and
interactions. spray,
smile and themselves pushing
buttons and dominoes which in
the wrong direction. fall.
not going going the wrong
direction fall we
that could be the but the
thoughts spray. all these colors
colors and
while we concrete,
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
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 accidentally
imagine ourselves as having for
a head this strangely
shaped box or a bird feeder with
a triangular roof
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
ourselves caring more about them
just because they asked.
they can't answer either,
and the grip gets
and they
contact but that's okay
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 this
piece of paper falls on the
ground, the sound of an overhead
lamp switching on
about nothing in particular
and everything in
particular,
everything and wanting to want
nothing,
to feel nothing, or at
least something
getting tighter and
how okay it is, how
beautiful it is and how funny it
that poetry and music might
be
all, that
sometimes and being naked is okay
too, that sometimes things
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 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
do,
for things nobody had
control over in the first place
and
and
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
them either. we remember
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
how did
questions which keep making their
way inside our mouths
we never could learn from
the last time
answer and instead only become
more unhappy and began to
screaming
face and bulging veins,
fists again and again
the door not even caring
what's on the other side, too
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
smell like something
burning so we all try
what we had done in the
kitchen
remember, and even the attempts to
remember make us shout with
words, make us
harder on the door while
wood is splintering here and
appears to
that time or this
and again and again
actually if actually these idea
reject we ask “who to are unable
to. know. and laugh, and
and can't these first place
first place when a comes new
comes to
can't think question to begin
with at how are able to and we
laugh
and we return “who are you
answer. we don't then we begin.
and we
it's hard to speak
sometimes. we are frustrated with
ourselves for our
inconsistencies
allowing things to be
they
always taking action
leftandrighting with the leftandright
were a different way or that
the coin had landed on the
other face;
out who we are, and
quite sure
leads anywhere
the energy to say anything,
too many responses waiting
behind
seem to go anywhere
positive,
hurt anybody or dissipate
into
had happened in
place and we begin to wonder if
anything actually did or does
of desperation and
confusion aimed at
particular, cycles going back and
forth but never quite
way, always surprising
somehow
confusion and lack of any sense of
nowhere
are getting nowhere.
we don't. “can
like. “can it stay like this
for ?” does. the smell
damp outside.
sticks. we a we notice pink
remember why, is so pink. we
remember everything is
we while ?” and
slowmoving sound so pink
why,
don't.
we this
the smell it smell of damp
notice how
pink
remember why, don't like this now
glue, the screams and
and the violins
themselves while from the
temperature every moment, how the
this glowing we can and
don't and that's would never
made human the on is skin and
the, the wind keeps bit we
are person and object the of
moves. the absorbed by the
floorboards and of of us why wood so
resonant, how quickly turn their
wheels. we it to a punchline,
clinging
falling into the the smiles and
violins the timer keeps our
notice. circles ink going
around on hear temperature us,
the sun this piece and it on
our skin and
or okay would never have
more human
skin keeps going the and an
instant we are
and all at once things
breathe with
little pulses
and somehow
quite
against the window, why one
harmony
another, why every
sort of climax where
culminate into some bigger thing
as if we
there
behind
where this leaf
fall in this
notice a pain in our lower back
from bad posture and some
strange sense of pressure from
the
now the
slowing down into
banging; we
the ground but we can't
care?
knew? we are staring at the
coin and the coin is staring
quietingly, the
softmurmurs not trying to say
anything in particular or
convince
prefering to let things just exist
the way they are and stay the
same when they
the same and change when
they need to change, or not
even need to stay the
need to change but maybe
want to
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
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
dead trees, the sun pushing
the waves around a little
through the screen door, gnats
in the air just sort of
moving around.
because the longer we
stare at
matter.
so paper so
remains perfectly hoping
help
relevancy of relevancy
listen to wonder come from
the sounds
because even
cloud a
whether cloud a cloud
the leaves
branches