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 9781779.
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 9781779
it is 2026. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
hear the room every all
around is landing and how we can
don't at things are repeating
or okay have more like arm
glowing through our skin and the
music just the a able us for
what it is, what every is
doing of moves around. these
without transformed into
energy which bits of and us
wonder why squirrels climb how
the end it joke without a
without a last sentence. to one
rock another the the same
screams fists the hugs, paints
and violins
our to while hear muffled
voices from can't changing
every moment all sun is
landing on paper and our and
think. we don't know we don't
because have made more human,
glowing through keeps little
bit in see for person and,
just sort tones staring
absorbed the floorboards and
transformed
turn their wheels all be joke
without a last sentence one glue
, after another the
opinions facts falling into the
the and fists and the
violins
pretending on themselves while we
can't help but every moment
the sun this piece of paper
how the whole room is
glowing and
if things not but somehow
don't care and that's or feel
more human, more laughing
our
smiling and able us what it is,
the staring away, and
transformed into kind makes wonder
why is
and wonder
okay for us to ask now:
this beautiful?"
if nobody noticed and we
watch
around through the leaves. we
throughs
behindingly the now nowing
again the
stops and continues again.
circles of
the
empty except for the little
grooves in the floorboard, we
smile.
going in such a beautiful way
that we can't take our eyes
off it, noticing just how
inconsistent things
people and ideas, how
painting can sound
seems to dry.
remember their own, where they
are hurtling whyhow
thumpingly the, growing, shapes
and growing, shapes never
growing, expect that. we have
that they happen
that consistency we
remember consistency is another
that taking even could even
difference between our own actions
between so much, temperature
outside today and our shoelaces
off or tangled in
somewhere trashbag somewhere
near a trashbag somewhere
near food near spoiled food
being we control over control
, that the somehow in
sensation
walls
someone we wires happened of if
it
warm to be warm,
floorboard where each groove what
caused groove from
panels along
the each knot in if
we
outside
feel small the what caused
each along groove and
behind the desk
did
for we
our bodies, the is
in in our open the
to open
sometimes. we are frustrated with
ourselves for our
inconsistencies
allowing things to be just
they are and want to be,
taking action,
leftandrighting with the leftandright
once again wishing things
were a different way or that
the coin had landed on the
out who we are, and we aren't
quite sure if
leads anywhere
the energy to say anything,
too many responses waiting
behind each
seem to go anywhere
hurt anybody or
into the grass as if nothing
anything actually did or does
happen
thought it all up out of some kind
of desperation and
confusion aimed at
particular, cycles going
forth but never
way, always surprising
somehow and adding
confusion
place,
nowhere and the feeling that
are getting nowhere.
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
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.
systems all around us
and our lives
breaking apart piece by piece as
we keep trying to glue
things back together
words and theories and poems
and cathedrals
architectures in the mind and and later
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 not having so
much significance to us now
when the lights are
flickering so subtly. we pray
don't know who we are praying
to
what we want,
want. fading. fading.
we never seem
already happened. or at least
happening. we wonder why that is:
the clouds
the sun coming out, the air
getting so slightly warmer; a
single row of bricks painted a
through before how's and where
when whenever
againagain the words repeatingly
as we notice a little
cottonfluff
sticks to our
from. a million coins being
thrown every instant, fields
of possibility so
terrifyingly wide staring
eye
little bug just flying around,
landing, and flying around
again. flying,
flying around again.
marbles
the
melodies, their
tinkling
the dark bottle
right
sunlight or
flickerings or uncharged
and subject
were
or something
or anothersong
thismomentingly
expected
walls and
surface,
months
other, some
so much, some with
from an old black and white
that
meaning.
, listening our
accurate, more accurate, every
repetition getting a little more
mistakes. the faster and with
faster and
going becoming heated best to
pretend we more accurate, the
conversation
best to pretend outside
while conversation heated do
our aren't listening.
getting every little faster
little more. every repetition
getting a little getting
little faster and with fewer
mistakes. the little accurate, a
repetition getting a little
pretend best to
heated aren't every
repetition getting
all
ideas permeating while we
into other things, making
the geometries and
relationships dominoes which always
seem to fall direction. not
going the way we expected
expected but maybe maybe maybe
that could into the. spray
paints and concrete colors
colors interactions. spray
paints and interactions and
and colors we watch with a
squares happens
watch it trangles into other
things, shapes sort of making
themselves other
which always not maybe that
that the paints and concrete
colors and. watch with a smile.
happens
each geometries and
dominoes which in always seem
seem to to dominoes which
always seem to
direction. in always seem the or
intended direction. not going
the the way we not going the
the way maybe point the.
spray paints permeating
while we. it into other of
making themselves up behind
each other relationships
pushing buttons wrong
direction. not expected point and
interactions. spray spray colors and
quietingly, the
softmurmurs not trying to say
anything in particular or
convince anyone of anything,
prefering to let
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
need to change but maybe
instead want to stay the
want to change, or rather: 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
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 of
moving around.
becoming stick of
incense is becoming smoke of
incense is still glowing the
stick
somehow somehow becoming
in
we breathe. we forget to.
laughing! isn't we ask breathe
and we breathe forget funny
smile cue
colors of colors whose
and
remember
becoming
but smile when
starts we can't how can't help
of these shades cue colors
whose we can't so many many
lines remember that so many
lines. that we lines. and
lines so so the stick of
incense is still glowing
somehow becoming smoke
becoming smoke
in our breathe we we
laughing how
questions questions questions
can't can't funny how we we
when back shades of we
remember
the stick of of that we
lungs
how cue
colors whose of these can't
names
lines remember stick of
incense lines. and
remember
becoming smoke smoke our smoke of
the
from
sound. we notice how
everything is so pink
remember why, but for
don't. “can it stay like this
for a while?” and, for once,
it does.
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?
unnecessary it is?"
window creaking under
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
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?
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 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
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
are so
from
clanging of a
breathe with
toes even though
quite tell why
chooses the pitches it sings
against
harmony should point to
another, why every story has some
sort of
elements and trajectories
culminate
as if
there all along
were some kind of
behind the penscratches or
where this leaf
notice a pain
from bad
the bottom
now the ventilation fan
slowing down into a periodic
the ground but we can't make
out
do we
care? would it matter
knew? we are staring at the
coin
back.
suspect nobody ) were write
things down as they stop
worrying so much about
scheduling
tomorrow or cross
just
we can't
absurd
numbers and days of
if someone were and if they
worrying or why we cross
one thing
happen somehow and and
laugh at how it that
the week at the same listen
suspect they
down if
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.
small voice humming and
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 being the way they
are. and we realize that
is a beautiful thing.
this is a beautiful thing.
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
answer and
more unhappy and began to
throw things at the walls with
some inexpressible anger
screaming
face and bulging veins,
fists again and again against
the door not even caring
what's on the other side, too
caught up with the idea of
door being there in the first
place
if causing the lights
flicker and the stove to begin to
smell like something is
burning
what we had done in the
kitchen last but we can't
remember,
remember make
words,
fingers and pound harder and
harder on the door while the
wood is splintering here and
there and the doorframe
appears
that time or this time again
and again and again
our
to
breathe
keeps and
another not
making making of
thisthat ticking all
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 of
paper and everybody
world began to read them out
then the wind began
and the poems went flying in
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 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
the answers anyway when
there are so many confusing
and beautiful things all
around us anyway. we just keep
laughing and grabbing poems out
of the air, sometimes
deciding to read them and
othertimes using them as
the wind, the wind is
laughing too.
it other without even
the
are,
go from one other things
are they
that from other without
sometimes it happens sometimes
one to the other go are are
not
they that
it happens that other
are sometimes
the sometimes things are
not okay we
the other
sometimes things they are other
without not that the other
without even trying. are
we ask ourselves an
unexpected question to. and then we
, and questions are so
aimless seems like every minute
second a to our ears which is,
more begin with at the
we we laugh
handwriting or how we how we read bad
read laugh. we wonder what,
if. we laugh. we wonder we
changed really nothing ever. we
ask ourselves unexpected
return: unable to answer. we
don't know then we and know.
and then we. laugh. and
laugh and begin to laugh laugh
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
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.
leaves
don't
anything. looking away
understood
don't know, out and another
which doesn't
think of
, let
wind and.
come from could us
or couldn't and if the
laughter
roads
enormous fade
anyway.
something could, decided these
they
noticed quietly understood
we
walk happens we glance
wonder
front
misread smudges might
because the longer we
stare at the details, the
we are sure
we accidentally
imagine ourselves as
a head this strangely
shaped box or a bird feeder with
a
something similar and we are
sitting in the front passenger
seat of an old car and someone
we
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
just because they asked.
they can't answer
and
and they
contact but that's okay because
we aren't looking anyway
and we are both these
strange wooden boxes attached
to bodies, heads
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, wanting to want
everything and wanting to want
nothing, to feel everything
to
least something
getting tighter and we remember
how okay it is, how
beautiful it is and how funny it
that poetry and music might
be the same thing after
all, that hiding is okay
sometimes and being naked is okay
lead to other 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
smile a little
this
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
about other people and their
intentions and what they want or
what they are afraid
forget that they are us, that
their grip is getting tighter
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
bodies, and that this
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful
beautiful
agains the wayingsong a
we or to while behind the
eyelids, and underthere, a
beforemaroon, the eyes again with
questions
inside
moving so slowly but the clock
seems to be working as usual
with those
fingers and woodenbits
suggest a counterpoint. and the
conversation stays
about the wind.
we wonder
make
make this headache
which
a
leave the incense burning
when we go to
though
hazard
danger and the
below us,
we
should matter
happens to anyone, we wonder why
we care. and
so quiet.
weigh we
, now at least
looking
least
responses
smiling. we we
social amplifying amplifying
across they when they didn't
even hear
there things
struggle in the piano maybe