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 6402527.
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 6402527
it is 2026. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
keeps bit,
for what it object is doing
sort of moves without away,
floorboards and kinetic and wood is
so resonant, we wonder if
in part, a story without a
with some rock another the
opinions same the timer keeps
ticking notice. the we can't
around sun
more a and the
conversation going best
while we. with accurate,
faster and with fewer
. the conversation going
mistakes. outside becoming
heated while to heated do our
best to pretend we aren't
every repetition getting.
aren't getting a little more we
aren't listening. every
repetition getting a little more.
getting a little more accurate,
a little faster fewer
mistakes while we pretend our
repetition little fewer, every
listening. every a little more
getting a we aren't accurate
little faster
accurate, a little with fewer
mistakes on outside going while
we going becoming with
fewer mistakes while we best
to pretend we aren't every
little accurate little every a
little little
conversation a getting a
little
conversation faster a little getting
a little more a and
mistakes.
going
our best to pretend we more
accurate, a accurate a to pretend
we aren't do on outside
becoming heated outside
becoming heated. we
the smell of damp sticks
from outside. a slowmoving
sound. we notice how
everything is
remember why, but for now we
don't. “can it stay like this
for
it does.
the corner of the room
empty
grooves in the floorboard, we
smile. the moments going and
going in such a beautiful way
that we can't take our eyes
off
inconsistent things are, how blurry
differences seem between things and
people and ideas, how
painting can sound
seems
real people
these possibilities tree to
end up just going with the
one we any
good as the one
first that least
different responses, different
responses
circumstances left them calling, and
smiling and we don't know us
why
first these across
joke was funny when they
didn't of the joke thought the
of it because there were
single car in this traffic
the just another
ceiling and none seem to be seem,
all situations,
possibilities fanning impossible to
weigh going with
with the one as any good as any
, for we
where we
thought the group of people why
they they was funny joke
funny even hear things,, in in
time. like just another keep
arriving
and none of. and people, all
of them
arriving
from real stories
options after.
incomprehensible after just end up just
going with the one end up just
going after options
impossible we we
first
instincts them we don't.
calling for for smiling. we are
smiling
don't smiled of of us know us
smiled group these why why of us
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
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
or is that a sign of
happiness, of
peacefulness? who's to tell what's
harmony and what's
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
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
another and the second hand is
somehow different this time
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.
sometimes
that
they that
and we go from to, sometimes
they,
trying. things and sometimes
things not, and sometimes
without from one to the things
are, and sometimes and and
without without.
sometimes they are the other not
and from even trying.
sometimes
and things are happens that
we
go
to the other without
we
make us
make this
from
a quote out of
when we
hazard and
danger
other people
we
them
happens
so
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
on the windowsill. it is
singing.
did
their own of on
in be
stinging
walls of
every walls scratch on
every
happened, if did of of for are the
outside bodies bodies, our it
it's hard to speak
sometimes. we are frustrated with
ourselves for our
inconsistencies
allowing things
they are and
always taking action and never
taking action,
leftandrighting with the leftandright
once again wishing things
were a different way or
the coin had
other face; we can't figure
quite sure if that question
leads anywhere
the energy to say anything,
too many responses waiting
seem to go anywhere
positive, anywhere that doesn't
hurt anybody or dissipate
into the grass as if nothing
had happened in
place and we begin to wonder if
anything actually did or
happen or if we had somehow just
thought it all up out of some kind
of desperation and
particular,
forth but never quite the same
way, always surprising
somehow and adding to the
confusion and lack of
place,
nowhere and the feeling that we
are getting nowhere.
direction. not going
the that could be the the
sneaking into into the thoughts
again concrete, all
permeating while we watch with a a a
smile.
and relationships
relationships pushing buttons and
dominoes which which always the
wrong going or intended goals
sneaking into the. goals could
into the. goals ideas and
interactions. spray
the different types
hats
even
they always
whether we
there
need
away and
and it isn't
strange when
agains the wayingsong a
eyelids, and underthere, a
questions
inside
with those clunks and little
fingers and woodenbits
conversation stays the same and
nobody really seems to care
about the wind.
laughing! isn't it
smile when the sun starts
coming back right on
of
names we can't remember
and lines and so many
we remember that the stick
of incense is still
glowing and
smoke in our lungs
and we breathe and we
breathe. we forget to ask
questions.
our
fuzzy kind
laughing voices
windchimes
we hear
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
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
everybody just watched it happen
in complete silence
can't help but smile a little,
and then a lot. and
hugs the stranger to their
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 to know
the answers anyway when
there are so
and beautiful things all
around us anyway.
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.
marbles in a glass
not going anywhere in
particular seeming to
the birds get their
tinkling or
the
right
flickerings or uncharged
batteries. the lithium looking for
and subject
were important or
or something
reflects in its own color onto
walls and
surface, papers scattered
months before piled over
paintings
from an
that
meaning.
silence and quiet now. a
small voice
laughing in the other room. a
crystal or some melting snow.
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
are. and we realize that this
is a beautiful thing. that
this is a beautiful thing.
because the longer we
we are sure they even
we accidentally
imagine ourselves as
a head this strangely
shaped box or a bird feeder with
a triangular
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
another. we aren't able to answer
with anything except a held
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
and we are both these
strange wooden boxes attached
to bodies, heads without
eyes which still say
eyes without laughinglines
which always find new things
to
behind our ears, the way this
piece of paper falls on the
ground, the sound of an overhead
about
and everything in
particular, wanting to want
everything and wanting to want
nothing, to feel everything and
to feel
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 thing after
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
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 don't want to
do, blaming other people
control over in
and jumping to conclusions
about other people and their
intentions and what they want or
what they are afraid of.
forget that they are us, that
their grip
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 that this is
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing.
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 mind and
in concrete, we begin to
feel jittery as we realize we
chair and its arms a little
narrow,
sides of our skulls, plurals
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
what we want, what we
want. fading. fading.
and all at
are so
from the
breathe with the sunlight,
passing clouds
little pulses in the
and somehow we feel it in our
toes
quite
chooses the pitches it
against
harmony should point to
another, why every
culminate into some bigger thing
as if
there all along as if there
were some kind of purpose
behind the penscratches or
where
fall
strange sense of pressure from
the bottom of our right foot
now
slowing down into a periodic
banging; we notice a
the ground but
do we care? is it good
knew? we are staring at
coin and the coin is staring
back.
we wait for a few minutes
this
if nobody noticed
watch the air
around through the leaves. we
sunlight and feel warmer.
throughs and
behindingly the now nowing
stops
circles of ink
and just
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.
the changes
happening.
the
getting
single row of bricks painted a
different color. who the behinds
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 meaning comes
from. a million coins being
thrown
of possibility so
eye so intensely we have to
look away
little bug just
landing, and flying around
again. flying, landing, and
flying around again.
cross out in cross one out we
thing out place of another
going lines
help it is like numbers and
days
things down listened. stop
worrying so
tomorrow or when
suspect
comes so why we can't a
begin with at or how we laugh we
laugh over or if nothing ever
if nothing ever we. an and
we are unable to answer
know then begin
laugh we see these why these
questions these it seems like
seems like every or second new
our to our is so, so, so, so we
can't think question to with
at the at to read bad read.
we we
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,
even need to stay the same or
need
instead want to
want to change, or rather: it
just happens.
happens, and it keeps just
happening. the softmurmers not
going on or what's not 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 sun pushing
the waves around a little
through the screen door, gnats
in the air just sort
moving around.
how did we get here? the
questions which
way inside our mouths as if
we never could learn from
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
fists again and again against
what's on the other side, too
caught up with the idea of the
door
place
if
flicker
smell like something
burning so
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
there and the doorframe
appears to budge this time or
that time or this time again
and again and 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
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
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.
which whyhow
thumpingly against the doors, the
momentnow changing and growing,
shapes never leading to ones we
expect
things might make sense of some
kind. we remember that things
don't have to make sense, that
things can be left just as they
happen
consistency is another sort of
illusion and that
away could even mean
allowing things which don't make
sense to happen
difference between our own actions
and the temperature
outside today, not so much
difference between our minds and
our shoelaces
untied, on or off or tangled up in
a trashbag somewhere
near spoiled food being
eaten by bacteria and fungi
remember that having no control
over the world also means
having no control over
ourselves, our thoughts, our
actions, and that this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing.
beautiful thing and that's
completely okay if we let it be, if we
watch the pollen drift to the
ground, following a single
green speck in its strange
path
together with the crowd and
completely separate, at the same
time
goal and
air's path, standing
for hours supposedly doing
some job playing some role in
this thing we call society,
vaguely defined values being
pushed on everyone even when we
don't quite understand what
anyone is saying or why they are
saying it or and we ourselves
don't
we ourselves are saying or
why we are saying it
still saying something
outside, the sun's belly still
rising and falling with every
breath as it thinks about
wooden cabinets and why they
are shaped the way they are
possibilities, so many ways to write a
poem or explain a thought, so
many ways to build a chord and
roll up our sleeves when it
seems everyday that there is a
new color in the sky, a new
piece of garbage on our desks.
different
combinations of words,
probabilistic relationships
imitating meaning while our ears
and toes make up for their
emptiness or soullessness if we
prefer to think of it that way.
the illusion breaking down
again, a smallvoiced reminder
that we are
grain of sand out of place in a
library where every book is in a
different language and there are
pictures of things we don't
recognize or have names for even
when we thought we had a good
grip on shapes and colors; we
are not sure if the
shuffling feet a few shelves down
is a librarian or an old
friend we haven't seen in a long
remember even though years ago we
had laughed until the sun
came back
is from an old cell phone
left playing music, or the
ventilation fans turning back on
remember that the galaxies
themselves are asking questions of
their own, wondering where
they are hurtling toward,
wondering when it will finally
stop for a minute