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 3021777.
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 3021777
it is 2022. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
and our lives fracturing
we keep trying to glue
things back together with
words and theories and
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
narrow, pressing against the
sides of our
and singulars not having so
much significance to us
when the lights are
flickering so subtly. we pray but
to
what we want, what we should
want. fading. fading.
the corner of the room
empty except for the little
smile. the moments
going in such a beautiful way
that we can't take our eyes
off it, noticing just how
inconsistent things
and arbitrary
differences seem between things and
people and ideas, how musical a
painting can sound
seems to
how did we get here?
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
throw things at the walls with
some inexpressible anger
screaming and shouting with a red
face and bulging veins,
fists again
what's on
caught up with the idea of the
door being there in the
place
if causing the lights to
flicker and the stove to begin to
burning so we all try to remember
what we had done in the
kitchen
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
wood is splintering here and
there and the doorframe
appears to budge
that time or this time again
and again and
agains the wayingsong
we or to while behind the
eyelids, and underthere, a
beforemaroon, the eyes
questions
under
inside it
moving so slowly but
seems
with those clunks and little
fingers and woodenbits
suggest a counterpoint.
conversation stays the same and
nobody really
about the wind.
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 to change but maybe
instead want to stay
want
just happens. it just
happens, and it keeps just
happening. the softmurmers
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
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.
and transformed into
which bits dust makes us
wonder, squirrels cars turn in
the end it out joke without a
story without these some
facts falling and keeps
ticking and
notice. around hear help but
skin
are repeating themselves
or don't care. we that
would never or the sun is
laughing on our arm and blood our
skin and music, and we keep an
to see everything around,
the
floorboards and transformed of
kinetic energy which dust is and
how turn we wonder if all
turn of punchline without
last sentence these one glue
opinions and the the screams and
keep doing best notice on
we can't the changing
every moment the sun is
landing on this piece room feel
for think we know if things
repeating themselves care. we
care and about that made feel
more, more like our skin and
the and are us is, object is
doing. these, kind of kinetic
energy
cars wonder if in part of a
joke
after another the opinions
the same and the hugs
violins to while other and we
can't help changing around us
is and it we repeating we
care and that's caring about
that more, on our glowing
through our skin going bit and
able to see for what person
and object how the eyes
without transformed kinetic
energy which pushes bits us
wonder trees of quickly. we it
will be part
one another with some one
after the opinions same
bucket and fists the and
ticking and pretending not
circles themselves from the
temperature changing moment the sun
this piece the whole we can
skin. don't themselves we
blood is glowing through
lungs
forget
help but smile
names lines and and lines and
names we we can't remember
colors of these whose
many can't remember lines
and lines and so of incense
glowing in breathe and we
breathe and
breathe and
!. laughing! isn't
funny how can't help sun can't
help when whose these colors
whose names lines whose names
lines
remember that the stick stick of
of becoming smoke
remember
incense we in lungs
funny how
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?
think for a minute, and then
with anything except a held
hand, and we
ourselves caring more about them
just because they asked.
and the
and they aren't making eye
contact but that's okay
we aren't looking anyway
and we are both these
strange wooden boxes attached
to
eyes which still say so much,
eyes without laughinglines
which always find new things
to smile about
behind our ears, the
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 and
to feel nothing, or at
least something
getting tighter
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
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
making sense to just accept
this and close our eyes and
this feels impossible. we
get frustrated
do things we don't want to
do, blaming other people
for things nobody had
control over in the first place
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
crying and we have been trying
not to notice. we remember
that we are all the same
person born into different
bodies, and
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing.
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
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
sagging, somewhere in these
pages an actual answer to a
question that matters. a new pair
of jeans, a holiday
decoration left
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
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
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.
concrete, all ideas
permeating all these colors with a
smile. we watch ideas smile.
and. it trangles into other
sort of and relationships
fall fall in the wrong wrong
the way maybe expected or
wrong intended intended,
goals sneaking and
interactions and concrete,. these
colors and ideas permeating
while colors and ideas
permeating these paints and
concrete permeating while just
squares squares and trangles
trangles themselves
always not maybe the point.
goals thoughts again again
again interactions., with a
all these colors and ideas
permeating while we we watch just
while we happens squares just
happens
other things happens things,
trangles into up shapes sort
other
relationships other
other dominoes which pushing
buttons and in the not the the not
not going seem the way
intended, we expected or wrong or
intended, but maybe point..
ideas spray paints and
concrete watch outlines of
squares squares and trangles
trangles into sort of making
themselves up behind buttons wrong
and dominoes which always
direction way we expected or the
way way we expected or
intended, could be the point.
thoughts again interactions.
spray paints all spray ideas
ideas and interactions
colors and ideas permeating
while we concrete
because the longer we
stare at
we are sure
matter.
and just like that, the
page turns for us. the next
series of random numbers fill
the screen and we begin to
imagine
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.
and all at once things
from the walls, distant
clanging of a
breathe with the sunlight,
passing clouds causing these
little pulses in the sunglow
and
toes even
quite tell why the
chooses the pitches
harmony should point to
another, why every story has some
sort
elements and trajectories
culminate into some bigger thing
as if we had
there all
were some kind of purpose
behind the penscratches or
where this leaf decides to
notice a pain in our lower back
from bad posture and some
strange sense
the bottom of our
banging;
the ground
out which
do we care? is it good to
care? would it matter if we
coin
back.
the
this breathe breathe
where
,
all
the can't
voices the
we
making or thing work and
work the
try
somewhere with going
the air's path the around
for some in this thing we
call we being values quite
when we everyone is saying or
and understand
saying it
still rising and falling it
thinks about wooden cabinets
and why there are so many
possibilities, many possibilities,
many possibilities or
explain a thought explain a
thought, so many our sleeves
when it is a piece, a sky
marbles in
particular seeming to
melodies, their strange
tinkling or rubbing
the
right
sunlight
flickerings or
batteries.
water.
asking
and subject
were important or something
or something or something
or anothersong
casting shadows
walls and
surface, papers scattered
months before piled
other, some important
so much, some with colors
paintings
from
laser
meaning.
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.
feel like we, it in our
small ourselves in in where
they
scratch on
behind the, if sort of their
moment our eyes for
our bodies are
stinging
notice
scrape walls the wooden wooden
panels and
, how
of it on
moment and feel like we that
somehow
stinging
the the
ask ourselves from and
scrape panels and
scratch about knot
be
we
small ask ourselves the
came the walls of someone
lot how each if
their own somehow
somehow close our eyes
outside our is that it now.
we ask ourselves some
question we can't hear, muffled
because our heads are
underwater, this cold sensation
pressing on our foreheads while
we feel our socks becoming
heavy, cottonfibers grabbing
skin and dragging behind our
feet, cold passing between
our toes. maroon painted
walls and a thick sweater,
crinkling plastic bag full of
snacks. we notice it is becoming
later every moment, and that
as soon as we count one
number there is another in
front of that, always room for
another one or zero or eighty
seven or pencilcase
dirtyshoe, these power outlets
rusting over even though we
can't see where the water
could have come from
the carpet telling which
way people walk most
without asking why they walk it
so often when it seems
there are so, so many other
ways to go and that this way
isn't even the easiest or most
efficient or beautiful or
surprising: they are taking the path
because it is the path they take,
and we can't help but
laughalittle at how beautiful that is
not to say that one is better
than another or that anyone
is wrong for going the way
they do or that we think we are
better than going that
particular way to the couch, but
that we know in the end we are
going to go that way too and
that's just fine. it's just as
good an option as any so we
don't see a reason why not
beautiful enough and it's
surprising enough
may be the most beautiful
and surprising thing of all
at the moment.
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
getting so slightly warmer; a
single row of bricks painted a
different color. who the
through before how's and where
when whenever
againagain the words repeatingly
as we notice
again where meaning comes
from. a
thrown every instant, fields
terrifyingly wide
eye so intensely we have to
look away
little bug
landing, and flying around
again. flying, landing,
flying
silence and quiet now. a
small voice humming and
crystal or some melting snow.
behinds toward while again
around where's or why's while
leftandright shrinking silently. a
wooden
centers
around, things just happening
and just being the way they
are. and we realize that this
is a
this is a beautiful
options we end up we
as any for go looking for
our for for different
responses, different ways of
dealing and why because
smiling why
social gestures gestures
across a group of people who
don't know why why was
when they didn't even hear
half on all at, story in
single car, the piano. maybe
more time. if there there
isn't..
keep arriving and of from to
fanning these these
out into,
incomprehensible tree some
incomprehensible tree,
entire stories into some
branching out into entire
incomprehensible impossible up just
up that seems
least we go looking we we
looking for our
make
which
from everything
scratching pens and observations,
a quote
leave the
when we
hazard and it puts our
danger
other people
below
care about what
them to. we wonder
should
we care.
it's hard to speak
sometimes. we
ourselves for our
inconsistencies
allowing things to be just the way
they are and want to
always taking action and never
taking action,
leftandrighting with the leftandright
once again
were a different way or that
the coin had landed on the
other face; we
out who we are, and we aren't
quite
leads anywhere
the energy to say anything,
too
behind each
seem to go anywhere
positive, anywhere that doesn't
hurt anybody or dissipate
into
had
place and we begin to wonder if
anything actually
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
way, always surprising
somehow and adding to the
confusion and lack
place, the feeling that we are
nowhere and the feeling that we
are getting nowhere.
go
not and and sometimes they
are
that we one to trying
sometimes things are okay are are,
and sometimes
without
trying.., and sometimes they
are
happens that and,, and happens
that
it to to
we wait for a few
and wonder if it would
around through the leaves. we
take another
sunlight and feel warmer.
throughs and arounds
behindingly the now nowing
again the time
stops and continues again.
circles
heated while the
conversation going the conversation
mistakes more getting we best
pretend our pretend
repetition getting a little
getting and
mistakes, the conversation
going and with fewer going
becoming
mistakes. the faster and getting
a a. our we do our
repetition accurate
little faster, more. every
repetition.
faster and with fewer heated
while we do our best to pretend
we aren't listening.
worrying
breakfast
suspect
numbers
. we stop
tomorrow
out
particular sense
scratchy going straight on
just
and
it
days two
might like if
about scheduling and books
and
thing writing without any of
another we are any particular
just going that somehow
happening if if trying to write.
start thinking (not
) about thinking
worrying might tomorrow or why
might be for thing
going on next word which
bounces it just going with it.
that we can't help
numbers and days even think
what two things
start (not worrying ) about
what might be for tomorrow
why we
cross out we breakfast
cross one
another are writing
,
straight
of all these people we've
never met
other
the place. so many
different
little motions,
back
mark because even
dams
collapse
going to do anyway. we
in a
or
maybe the
felt some need
in such
grid
look at the branches from
below.
comes walking by our sitting
place, but we don't
they noticed us
and quietly understood
just not say anything, that
sometimes
and they walk
and another thing
glance
if it's eight yet, and it
sun
our
hair looks when the wind
the ink and
hand but somehow
were hoping that the
might make us
a word
wouldn't
maybe
or
better,
question
for a moment, and
listen
airplanes
wonder if anything could
couldn't
it would matter anyway