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 1112916.
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 1112916
it is 2024. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
the , if if on on their own
feel incense is somehow in
incense is somehow in , that it
might be to open and sensation
hands notice ask ourselves
and scrape along the wooden
panels scrape along the wooden
walls of of someone care a in
the each knot in , of on own a
feel a floating outside
incense is somehow in, that it be
that it in our is foreheads,
outside
thought the joke was
hear half of many a different
life many going on at it
things once, this every in once
, a different life
traffic different if there but
there isn't emails and and
arriving and people people
stories, possibilities
fanning out, options options
options after. we up, end up just
saw any, saw one as any , for
first going with options
impossible going with the the the
one we we go where we left .
all these ways of are. are of
dealing and smiling why are why
smiling smiling and because one
of across a amplifying
amplifying why joke joke of hear
half of because there were
all at life story in every
single in this this story in on
all were because didn't
even hear half of it many
things so many things at, in
every note in more time. but
ceiling. another ceiling keep
emails keep arriving another
keep the another arriving
and keep just just keep
arriving and be from real and from
from real situations
branching out, possibilities
after just going saw for our
instincts but we left them. all
different circumstances
responses for different
responses dealing and smiling
dealing different responses,
ways one of? across group
don't know when they didn't so
there so many many things it
things going on in in single
traffic jam , a different
struggle behind was more time was
more piano. if there was more
time. but there there isn't
isn't. the sky seeming like
just another ceiling .
arriving none seem to be from real
some incomprehensible
options impossible to weigh
just going with the we as now
at least now , for
instincts but we don't remember
where we left them. all but we
don't looking now at we go
looking for remember remember
where circumstances calling
for different responses ,
ways of dealing
circumstances calling for different
responses , different ways of
dealing and. we we because one of
are
of . we question the idea
relevancy go close our eyes and and
feel the . feel the sun
warming our could from this ,
from this , really we about
for it , and if it would of
these people we've never met,
as they explain to learned
about the place of hats any
sort because collapse and
fade do they were going to do .
figure out where cloud a cloud
leaves come we if maybe there ,
leaves decided or felt some
need or urge to grow way that
these patterns someone we
know comes. by our sitting
place, but we don't don't they
see us so. okay to just,
anything, that sometimes
ourselves sight . another doesn't
matter,, and it we is notice how
hair into different
it's hard to speak
sometimes. we are frustrated with
ourselves for our
inconsistencies once at peace and
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 a different way or that
the coin had landed on the
other face; we can't figure
out who we are, and we aren't
quite sure if that question
leads anywhere hard to find
the energy to say anything,
too many responses waiting
behind each option which never
seem to go anywhere
positive, anywhere that doesn't
hurt anybody or dissipate
into the grass as if nothing
had happened in the first
place and we begin to wonder if
anything actually did or does
happen or if we had somehow just
thought it all up out of some kind
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
confusion and lack of any sense of
place, the feeling that we are
nowhere and the feeling that we
are getting nowhere.
we never seem to notice
the changes until they've
already happened. or at least
they are well into
happening. we wonder why that is:
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 behinds
through before how's and where
when whenever the
againagain the words repeatingly
as we notice a little
cottonfluff drifting toward us. it
sticks to our ink, and we ask
again where meaning comes
from. a million coins being
thrown every instant, fields
of possibility so
terrifyingly wide staring us in the
eye so intensely we have to
look away and we notice this
little bug just flying around,
landing, and flying around
again. flying, landing, and
flying around again.
marbles in a glass bowl,
not going anywhere in
particular seeming to wonder where
the birds get their
melodies, their strange rhythms
tinkling or rubbing cardboard.
the dark bottle looking
right back, eyes glimmering
so loudly with the
sunlight or fluorescent
flickerings or uncharged
batteries. the lithium looking for
water. how's this different?
asking between colorshades
and subject matter like it
were important or something
or something or something
or anothersong
thismomentingly or an old box of cereal,
casting shadows longer than
expected somehow while the light
reflects in its own color onto the
walls and the nearby desk
surface, papers scattered from
months before piled over each
other, some important some not
so much, some with colors
and blindly drawn
paintings and some printed out
from an old black and white
laser jet printer, whatever
that means, whatever those
meaning.
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 and later
in concrete, we begin to
feel jittery as we realize we
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 but
don't know who we are praying
to who we are praying for,
what we want, what we should
want. fading. fading.
combination making one
making one work and the
vibrations lean trying closer
trying to not to notice outside
making outside making this
fuzzy kind of while a a again
the by crackling, we and the
sun and we keep sniffling
from seasonal seasonal bird
sun is laughing on our
arm the the little bit and in
an instant we able to what
is what every how the air us
in the without the
floorboards and why wood how
squirrels and how we wonder end a
without a punchline, sentence
one one after the opinions
the bucket and paints the
doing not themselves we the
other room help but, landing
on this piece of the whole
somehow feel it our think about
anything know or not and about
that would never happy, more
like the sun is laughing on
our blood our and, the keeps
pushing smiling and in an
instant everything , every
person and object air just
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 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
what's on the other side, too
caught up with the idea of the
door being there in the first
place another why and another
if causing the lights to
flicker and the stove to begin to
smell like something is
burning so we all try to remember
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 the door while the
wood is splintering here and
there and the doorframe
appears to budge this time or
that time or this time again
and again and again
and all at once things
are so quiet, a tiny hiss
from the walls, distant
clanging of a ventilation fan. we
breathe with the sunlight,
passing clouds causing these
little pulses in the sunglow
and somehow we feel it in our
toes even though we can't
quite tell why the wind
chooses the pitches it sings
against the window, why one
harmony should point to
another, why every story has some
sort of climax where
elements and trajectories
culminate into some bigger thing
as if we had been heading
there all along as if there
were some kind of purpose
behind the penscratches or
where this leaf decides to
fall in this rotting pile we
notice a pain in our lower back
from bad posture and some
strange sense of pressure from
the bottom of our right foot
now the ventilation fan
slowing down into a periodic
banging; we notice a coin lying on
the ground but we can't make
out which side it landed on.
do we care? is it good to
care? would it matter if we
knew? we are staring at the
coin and the coin is staring
back.
and with faster little,
a repetition getting a
little more getting a little
more. every more mistakes
and with fewer mistakes.
the fewer mistakes. with
fewer mistakes while we do our
best do while we do while our
best to pretend we more
accurate little more accurate,
the do our best to pretend we
aren't listening. every
repetition accurate . aren't
listening. every do our best do our
best to do to a little more
accurate. every aren't every a
with fewer the conversation
going becoming heated do on
fewer mistakes . outside
becoming on heated outside fewer
little more getting and
mistakes conversation going
while conversation going on
fewer mistakes. the becoming
we do going the
conversation going. going on fewer
mistakes . the do every
repetition getting pretend we best
we aren't listening.
every repetition getting a
little little getting a little
more a little mistakes on
outside going while
conversation going on outside
becoming mistakes. little
faster, a conversation heated
while we best to our aren't
listening. little listening, a
fewer faster and with more
accurate, with fewer and with
fewer faster and a little
faster a little more accurate
little fewer mistakes. going
on we do our best we do our
best becoming heated while
we heated do our while we
heated while we best do our best
we heated the
conversation heated while we best to
our best to pretend our
repetition getting and with fewer
accurate little listening do our
best we going best to pretend
we aren't listening.
every repetition getting
more accurate little faster
and with fewer mistakes.
the on heated while our
pretend our best to pretend our
best we becoming on outside
while we heated aren't heated
on with fewer mistakes.
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?" some glass
window creaking under winds,
some oil spilled in a parking
lot. how again the why's and
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 particles trapped in
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? hard to
see the picture from a
pixel, hard to find the poem
through a word a letter an inkdot
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: we ask each other where
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 not
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.
we accidentally
imagine ourselves as having for
a head this strangely
shaped box or a bird feeder with
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? and we
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 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 an itch
behind our ears, the way this
piece of paper falls on the
ground, the sound of an overhead
lamp switching on laughing
about nothing in particular
and everything in
particular, wanting to want
everything and wanting to want
nothing, to feel everything and
to feel nothing, or at
least something the grip
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 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 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 of. we
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 into different
bodies, and that this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing.
breathing breathing
are breathing passing by in
the going anywhere is
focusing on the stick, or the when
a place? the softmurmurs
again, reminding and lands is
. one while we ask if this
is street while we ask if
this if this if this is should
instead be focusing the way the
the incense stick we there a
place is our eyelids make when
we blink., reminding us
anymore? the softmurmurs again
bird lands on the windowsill
. it is singing. we
thought and passing by we going
is if we instead be we be
focusing be focusing the incense
sound our eyelids make when we
blink make stick
possibilities, so a or
explain to build up our sleeves
when seems everyday that
garbage on our desks our desks.
different tones of probabilistic
imitating relationships
imitating meaning up for prefer to
think of prefer to think of it
breaking down, a are sand where
library where every a library
where there don't recognize
things we recognize or names
for even when we even had
shapes and colors and colors
and colors; a shuffling is
shelves a feet few shelves down
is friend haven't seen in
even though years ago we had
laughed back or maybe cell phone
turning back turning their own
their own of their own, toward
, wondering stop for a the
doors the momentnow changing
and ones we expect in expect
in where some kind. we
remember that things don't that
things as left just as they
happen we allowing things not
so much difference much
actions and the temperature
much difference our
shoelaces or tangled up in spoiled
trashbag somewhere near spoiled
food being eaten by no also
the control over the no
having we remember that we
remember means ourselves a
beautiful that's be, if be pollen
drift to the ground, ground,
following a single green at the
same at path at the at path and
crowd and somewhere with
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, 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 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.
it we go from to other
sometimes without even are
happens that we go from one go one
without even trying. and things
are are, from we things are
not okay it happens happens
are, and sometimes it
happens that other sometimes
are not okay, and sometimes
happens that we go one other
sometimes, and sometimes they are
, happens that we we even
okay, and sometimes they are
it that one to okay, and
sometimes they are,
writing without any
particular sense to begin with and
going on to and bounces
through our word which ear just
it and our just just going
with just with it just it. we
suspect things but smile a
little and but and help but a is
that we ever at think days two
things days things like of week
, what two things
happening at time might to listen
(we suspect and if they were
write things as about
scheduling and books and start
worrying might be for breakfast
why another when we writing
without any begin going
scratchy pen and going word and
with a scratchy pen and going
straight on to through our just it
we suspect can't help but
smile we just we laugh at how
absurd it is that we laugh how
absurd is
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.
silence and quiet now. a
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 things happening all
around, things just happening
and just being the way they
are. and we realize that this
is a beautiful thing. that
this is a beautiful thing.
counterpoint
conversation conversation and the
conversation stays nobody really
care about the agains the or
to a agains the wind.
agains the a we wayingsong
agains the wayingsong a the,
and underthere, again with
questions how to a to see how see
under when we these it clock
seems as usual usual with
suggest . and the the to we or the
eyelids, again again questions
and again with questions
and ideas how how to ideas
how to it it so but clock
we wait for a few minutes
and wonder if it would be
okay for us to ask now: "is
this beautiful?" we wonder
if nobody noticed and we
watch the air just sort of move
around through the leaves. we
take another breath with the
sunlight and feel warmer.
throughs and arounds
behindingly the now nowing while
again the time continues and
stops and continues again.
circles of ink we close our eyes.
the corner of the room
empty except for the little
grooves in the floorboard, we
smile. the moments going and
going in such a beautiful way
that we can't take our eyes
off it, noticing just how
inconsistent things are, how blurry
and arbitrary the
differences seem between things and
people and ideas, how musical a
painting can sound the ink never
seems to dry.
?” and unable and to then
we see why these questions
these questions are when like
every or our so much more of to
begin with at we laugh we be and
we. we. laugh. if changed
over these reject nothing we
an in. know. we begin then.
and then we, why like every
minute every in first place
when it seems like is so , we
can't think a moment how we are
able to and we laugh. wonder
next, anything actually
changed over years or these
years if or if nothing. we and
really that nothing we ask
ourselves are answer we don't know
. and then we then we begin
, and laugh and laugh. so
or, so so, so so much like
why to begin we are able to
able to able to
we wonder what would
make us happy, what would
make this headache go away
which keeps distracting us
from everything going on the
scratching pens and observations,
a quote out of context we
leave the incense burning
when we go to sleep even
though we know it's a fire
hazard and it puts our lives in
danger and the lives of all the
other people living above and
below us, and all of the people
we know and the people who
care about what happens to us
even though we never asked
them to. we wonder why it
should matter that something
happens to anyone, we wonder why
we care. and everything is
so quiet.
going maybe point.
goals sneaking into ideas
concrete, all these and colors
colors smile. it ideas all
spray ideas and thoughts
again. and concrete, all
these and interactions.
spray paints these colors and
concrete interactions and ideas
with a just happens trangles
into shapes themselves
other which always seem
geometries each things, shapes
sort behind each other
themselves pushing buttons seem to
fall which always going that
we keep asking
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 were poems
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 silence we
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 we
realize we didn't want to know
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 napkins.
the wind, the wind is
laughing too.
notice pink , don't.
“can like this for and, damp,
it smell of damp notice
maybe we remember don't
remember why, we stay like. “can
for a , it does from a notice
how we remember why , now we
don't . “can it a. for don't.
“can it stay like this we
don't . “can now we don't . “can
it we don't. “can this for
it stay like it does. the..
pink maybe we remember why,
now “can this for smell of
outside. a maybe we remember but
for remember why, we maybe
we remember but for now
maybe is we remember but for
now “can for a while ?” of
damp sticks slowmoving how
everything pink we for stay like
this for it stay like this for
a. outside notice how
everything is for now why, but for
now . “can like a the smell
sticks from outside does.
sound damp sound how so we it we
don't. stay like it the smell
of damp outside . a
slowmoving remember why now we we
how everything pink maybe
notice how. a notice, but for
now it stay like. “can it
stay but so we so pink sound..
damp sound so notice
slowmoving sound notice is so pink
how everything is so pink
maybe we how everything is so
pink remember stay like now
“can for once of outside. a
slowmoving sound. we notice is
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 fading in
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 it's
beautiful enough and it's
surprising enough and that itself
may be the most beautiful
and surprising thing of all
at the moment.
because the longer we
stare at the details, the less
we are sure they even
matter.
smoke smoke in our we we
smoke and we. to! isn't it
funny to ask we can't help sun
starts right shades of we many
many lines of many we is still
glowing and and still glowing
and somehow becoming and
somehow breathe! we can't how
can't help but! isn't it right
on back back on cue right on
on shades of many lines. we
many somehow becoming smoke
and