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 9771130.
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 9771130
it is 2024. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
we accidentally
imagine ourselves as having for
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
we care a lot about asks,
who are you?
think for a minute, and then
another. we aren't
with anything
hand, and we somehow find
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
to
behind our ears, the way this
piece of paper falls on the
ground, the sound of an overhead
lamp switching on
about nothing in
and everything in
particular, wanting to want
everything and wanting to want
nothing,
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
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
smile a little but somehow
this feels impossible. we
get frustrated and start to
do things we don't want to
for things nobody had
control over in the first place
and jumping to conclusions
and making assumptions
about other people and their
intentions
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 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
beautiful thing.
beautiful thing.
little blue bird lands
on. it is breathing
passing in by this the we going
anywhere be focusing something
be we should
way is drifting away
incense stick, stick smoke away
incense stick, is eyelids make
when we eyelids. is there?
the softmurmurs again us
our breath: and a little
lands it is singing. singing.
singing we are windowsill. we
breathing still one ourselves if
this if ourselves if this
we something else from the
incense
struggle
arriving and keep arriving ever
possibilities
we saw first and that seems
as that, now looking for
our them. these different
circumstances calling
circumstances calling smiling. we
know
know
things going on all
different
note in the piano.. maybe if
but and keep arriving and
to fanning out into
options tree impossible to. we
weigh. we the one we first
first end any go looking for at
least our instincts where for
different responses,
responses and smiling why
smiling we smiling and we don't
amplifying across gestures us
smiled amplifying across who
the they didn't because
didn't even hear half of it so at
once once life
thought even joke it
many things so many of it at
single a different life, note
sky
situations
incomprehensible out be from real people
and
out into entire out be seem
to
situations branching out into
entire stories these
some incomprehensible tree
impossible
seems as as good for now at that
seems as good saw
looking for for don't
we don't remember
our instincts but our
instincts them. these responses
different smiling why
first first thought the of it
because were were so
all at once
life in
every car maybe there
time
maybe if there sky seeming
seeming like just keep arriving
and seeming the sky another
keep arriving and of emails
just keep arriving
them ever seem these
situations branching options
impossible out into some
incomprehensible, entire stories,, all
how
questions which keep making their
way inside
we never could learn from
the last time we couldn't
answer and instead only become
more unhappy and began to
throw things
some
screaming and shouting with a red
face and bulging veins,
fists
the door not even caring
what's on the other side, too
caught up with the idea of the
place
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
remember, and even the attempts to
remember make us shout with fewer
words, make us scream with our
fingers and
harder on the door while the
wood is splintering here and
there and the doorframe
appears to budge
that time or this
and again and again
and all at once things
are
from the walls, distant
clanging of a ventilation fan. we
breathe with the sunlight,
passing clouds causing these
little
and somehow we feel it in our
toes even though we can't
quite
chooses the pitches it sings
against the
harmony should point
another, why every story has some
sort
culminate into some bigger thing
as if we had been heading
there all along as
were some kind of
fall
notice a pain in
strange sense
the
now
slowing down into a periodic
banging; we notice
the ground but we
do we care? is it good
care? would it
knew? we are staring at the
coin and the coin
silence and
small voice humming and
laughing in the other room. a
crystal or
leftandright shrinking silently. a
wooden creak. a
around, things just happening
and just being the way they
are. and we realize that this
is
this is a beautiful thing.
the care care the
wayingsong or to to to behind the
eyelids
underthere
questions
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
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.
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.
the might us
wouldn't otherwise,
different
would
relevancy a moment
airplanes and feel
just
we this
anything about
anything
learned
leaving any
collapse and fade
going to
patterns
from
when these
come look at the branches
from below. and now branches
. but
us so anything they just
we
the changes until they've
already happened. or at least
they are well into
happening. we wonder why that is:
the sun coming out, the air
single row of bricks painted
different color. who the behinds
through before how's and where
when whenever the
againagain the words repeatingly
cottonfluff drifting
sticks to our ink, and we ask
again where meaning comes
from. a million coins being
thrown every instant, fields
of possibility so
terrifyingly
eye so
look away
little bug just flying around,
again. flying,
flying around
are hurtling where they
are wondering own,
wondering wondering it
wondering it wondering for doors
the changing, against
momentnow changing and momentnow
changing and might. we
sense, just as they happen
consistency remember happen
happen
outside today, not outside the
temperature outside much
difference between our minds and
our
in a somewhere near by
being
beautiful thing is a beautiful
this is a beautiful this if
let it be the ground strange
same time somewhere in
we wonder
make this headache
scratching
a
leave the
danger
care about what
even though
them to.
happens
and then
laugh, and laugh, and laugh,
and laugh are so first place
when like every minute like
every or second, so
question to how we to able
handwriting. bad handwriting. and
and, and we and we laugh.
might what if nothing ever
really changes ever changes.
we reject the if reject
nothing “who are you ?” then to
laugh and can't so aimless
place seems like every like
every minute or second a comes
, so why think of a begin
with at or, be might be
anything nothing anything if
actually changed over actually
over actually changed over
these years these years or if
nothing ever changes we reject
the we ask ourselves ask an
unexpected in: you. we don't and you
and we ?” are you and we
answer know and then begin to
laugh, we can't. we see why
these questions so aimless in
the first place when it
seems like question comes our
like the moment the at to bad
handwriting laugh,. we and be might
next, if changes. we changes
ourselves in: return in: answer
are you ?” and are unable are
unable to don't know we ?”. we
don't know we begin to to laugh
, and are aimless in the
question comes so much important
like important a good
question are laugh, laugh and.
these years ever really
changes nothing really
unexpected to then cry begin to cry.
cry begin to cry, and laugh,
and the first place to our
ears like why we, so we think
of
important
sound. we notice how
everything is
maybe we remember why, “can it
stay like this for once
we ?” and, sticks
because the longer we
stare at the details, the
we are sure they even
matter.
the
empty except for the little
grooves in the floorboard, we
smile. the moments going and
going
that we can't take our eyes
off it, noticing just how
inconsistent things are, how blurry
and arbitrary the
people and ideas, how musical a
painting can sound
seems to dry.
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
written on little sheets of
paper and everybody in the
world began
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
can't help but smile a little,
and then a lot. and someone
hugs the stranger
left and we all begin to
laugh. we ask ourselves
another question we can't hear
because of
poems, and that's just fine
realize we didn't want to know
the
there are so many confusing
and beautiful things all
around us anyway. we just keep
laughing
of the air, sometimes
deciding to read them and
othertimes using
the wind, the wind is
laughing too.
which our
with still
just
just
smile a little and then laugh
how think
what two
the to
and books and thinking (not
) about
begin one with and
it
suspect and we can't help but a
little
, and sometimes
happens that we
sometimes they are, and sometimes
trying
they
trying
we
sometimes
from one
happens that from one
they are
things
happens sometimes happens the
other not okay sometimes they
it
systems all around us
and our lives fracturing
breaking apart piece by piece
we keep trying to glue
things back together with
words
and cathedrals
architectures in
in concrete, we begin to
feel jittery as we realize we
haven't stood up in
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
don't know
to
what we want, what we should
want. fading. fading.
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
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 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.
getting a little more
accurate a little, a little
faster and little faster, a.
best to
pretend while we. little more
accurate, faster repetition
getting a little more accurate,
a repetition. every
repetition getting more accurate,
every repetition getting a
aren't listening. our best we
aren't listening pretend
outside becoming heated
our outside becoming going
the becoming we
faster and with
little faster little more
little
conversation going on we
conversation
fewer mistakes.
it's hard
sometimes.
ourselves
inconsistencies
allowing things to be just the way
they are and want to be,
always taking action and never
taking
leftandrighting with the leftandright
once again wishing things
were a
the coin had landed on
other face; we can't figure
out who we are, and we aren't
quite sure if that question
leads anywhere
the energy to say anything,
too
behind each option which
seem to go
positive, anywhere that doesn't
hurt anybody or
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
of desperation and
confusion aimed
particular, cycles going back and
forth but
way, always surprising
somehow and adding to the
confusion and lack of
place, the feeling that
nowhere and the feeling that
are getting
and wonder if
this beautiful?" we wonder
if
around through the leaves.
take
sunlight
behindingly the now nowing while
again the time continues
stops and continues again.
circles of ink
but the grass
the against
thisthat theringly,
the.
while
recognize
laughing
quiet
making longer a bird from
somehow
another not? the work
another not to
notice. the outside
just hand
second
voices make
slantingway one or slantingway
the vibrations
fuzzy
again by
keep
outside making this
crackling,
that sound sniffling
don't the sort of
okay more
our
but
screams, we keep doing
our going around muffled
from can't help changing
every moment all is on is
glowing and can somehow skin a.
we don't. about have made
us more human arm and
through our
marbles
not going anywhere in
particular seeming
the birds
the dark
right
so loudly with
flickerings or uncharged
water. how's this different?
asking
were
or
casting shadows longer than
walls and the nearby desk
surface, papers scattered from
months
so much, some with colors
and blindly drawn
paintings and some printed out
from an
laser jet printer, whatever
. goals sneaking into
spray paints and concrete,
all these colors smile
squares other sort of making
relationships relationships
relationships pushing pushing
pushing which always in always
pushing
wrong seem to wrong direction
. not going seem to
dominoes which always seem the or
wrong direction expected or
point. goals sneaking spray
ideas and colors and ideas all
all all all just trangles
other other each
themselves up buttons seem
geometries buttons seem to fall in
but smile when help when
back right starts the the
coming coming back back smile
when the sun
remember
remember that the
and and
questions laughing ask funny
funny how the sun starts
coming right on
lines and lines lines lines
and
that the stick of incense is
lungs
somehow the stick somehow
becoming smoke somehow we
breathe and breathe and we
breathe we sun
and lines lines and so many
lines lines. we that that
lungs
. laughing! isn't
laughing!
back right cue shades
these these colors of back
right colors whose
remember
many lines lines
incense
smoke lungs
breathe it funny how
help when starts coming back
sun starts back starts
right
remember remember
remember remember still smoke
our lungs we breathe and we
forget to. laughing starts
coming coming on back right
right starts coming back help
but smile cue
starts coming sun starts can't
remember lines. that glowing
glowing
becoming becoming. laughing but
smile can't help but but these
names can't remember
and
incense we remember that
the the the stick that the
and
quietingly, the
softmurmurs not trying to say
anything in particular or
convince anyone of
prefering to let things just exist
the way they are and stay the
same when they need to stay
the same and change when
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,
the sound waves not
disappearing but echoing off a
thousand surfaces and every
blade of grass,
muffled and distorted and
echoed until they sound like
dead trees, the sun pushing
the waves around
in the air just sort of
moving around.
sort sort of if these
things
and
our foreheads
outside to might
open enough
each groove from
came and ourselves where
along
care a about someone
about