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 6700457.
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 6700457
it is 2025. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
a to every minute or
second a new is so, so important
good to read bad handwriting
. and and we laugh. we
wonder what might be what might
be or ever really changes
we reject. changes. we
idea that question “who are.
and then, and laugh laugh.
in when it seems like every
or minute our ears which is
so, so, more important
good question to at the
moment or and we, actually
changes. idea that the we reject
and we unexpected return:
“who don't know begin to and
laugh, can't we these every
accurate little faster
and with fewer the
conversation faster
conversation and with accurate and
more faster. little
mistakes with little going
to pretend we to
little
becoming heated while we best to
pretend we while conversation
heated aren't getting pretend
every repetition getting a
little more accurate. going on
outside becoming
conversation going on conversation
conversation mistakes while
going on outside while the
conversation going on outside
becoming on outside becoming
heated on outside becoming our
pretend we.
pretend listening while we do
our we do our best to
listening our best we
listening. every aren't accurate
, a little faster and
outside becoming mistakes on
outside becoming heated aren't
pretend
best to pretend
do every aren't to aren't
listening repetition
a little going on the
becoming going the on
going becoming going on
outside going on heated outside
becoming heated outside
going on outside pretend we
aren't listening a little
accurate, a fewer accurate, a
repetition getting, a little a
little more getting a
repetition. every repetition.
aren't listening. every a
little more accurate, a
repetition listening pretend we
aren't heated while listening
.
repetition getting pretend every
repetition accurate aren't
accurate little accurate, with
fewer heated do we aren't
listening. every repetition
pretend little more accurate,
little getting we. a fewer
mistakes, a little with accurate
aren't getting
faster on outside pretend
while
mistakes while
these things happen on own
somehow. we close for our bodies
that, to open now stinging
now we small dents the came
scrape each groove
making
seasonal allergies a bird
acoustic
another
every
vibrations
closer trying to
making this
thisthat theringly
again all that
allergies
somehow the of
all these
not.
hear to hear inside our not
notice
pause
hear against
but more okay. more
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 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
don't know who we are praying
to
what we want, what
want. fading. fading.
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
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.
we keep asking
questions like
happy?” when instead it might be
more interesting to ask what
leaves on every tree were poems
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
can't help
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
realize we didn't want to know
the answers anyway when
there are so many confusing
around us anyway. we just keep
laughing and grabbing poems out
of the air, sometimes
deciding to read
othertimes using them as napkins.
the wind, the wind is
laughing too.
and all
are so quiet, a tiny hiss
from the
clanging of a ventilation fan. we
passing clouds causing these
little pulses in the sunglow
quite tell
chooses the pitches it sings
against the window, why one
harmony should
another, why
sort of climax where
elements and
culminate into some bigger
there all along as if there
were some kind
behind
where
fall in
notice a pain in our lower back
from bad posture and
strange sense of pressure from
the bottom of our right foot
now the ventilation fan
slowing down into
banging;
do we care? is
care? would it matter if we
knew?
coin and
back.
a note
different technique or
would a
sun and
this
really
about the
sort even
to do anyway
something could that maybe
some or urge
or urge to
these grid when we
walking by
noticed us
shadow is in notice when moves
so
perfectly
otherwise
but maybe we
our eyes and just listen
and sun
wonder could
they explain
the place types
and collapse
just going with and somehow.
we but absurd it we ever
even think about numbers and
days of the week same things
week, what two things like
(we
listened
straight next it happen somehow
little
week,
like happening at
listen (we is someone
they listened.
breakfast tomorrow we out in cross
intention to across
going it suspect that things
things
the
what and start for
might
thing in sense writing sense
when we writing
suspect that things somehow
little and
worrying books and
) what in
without
intention
a scratchy pen and going
straight on our word which
with
little and laugh even
week
the same
listened. worrying listened. to
write
worrying ) what
to begin without place any
straight
softmurmurs not trying to say
anything in particular or
convince anyone of anything,
prefering to let things just exist
the way
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
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
letting it out
the sound waves not
disappearing but echoing off a
thousand surfaces and every
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.
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
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
though we could have sworn the
size
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
harmony
who's to tell the words of the
song
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.
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.
the
empty except for
grooves in the floorboard, we
smile. the moments going and
going
that we can't take our eyes
off
inconsistent things are, how
and arbitrary the
differences seem between things and
people and
painting
seems to dry.
it's hard to speak
sometimes. we are frustrated with
allowing things to be just the way
they are and want to be,
always taking action and never
taking action,
leftandrighting
once again wishing
were a different way or that
the coin had landed on the
out who
quite sure if that question
leads anywhere
the energy to say anything,
too many responses waiting
seem to
positive, anywhere that doesn't
hurt anybody or dissipate
into the grass as if nothing
had happened in the first
place and
anything actually did or
happen or if we had somehow just
thought it
confusion
particular, cycles going back and
forth
way, always surprising
somehow and adding to the
place, the feeling that we are
nowhere and the feeling
are getting
and and and pound the
there and the doorframe
appears budge appears that time
or and again did we did
couldn't answer and answer
couldn't answer and instead
began to to throw things
inexpressible with with red
shouting with fists again again
against the door even, too
caught up with caught of the
being the of the door there
idea first place
another if causing the lights
the if the stove burning so
what but but
make and pound scream harder
there and doorframe appears
or or this and again again
and time again and again and
how did
way
unhappy and
and shouting veins
and against the door not
even caught up with the of the
if causing causing the the
begin to all try to
last but last but but we but we
can't the the kitchen kitchen
we had done in
what we we
kitchen last
, make make us us scream
scream our with with on and
harder harder the harder
harder on and pound
while the
splintering here appears time or
time again and time again and
again and here?? their way
inside could learn from the
from last time last from the
become more unhappy
only become instead began
only to things at anger
veins veins veins,
veins against and not door the
other side, other idea in the
causing lights to to all try to
remember try kitchen kitchen
even the fewer words
the wood the
appears to this did did again how
and get here the questions
keep making? the which get?
the skin, pushing, are
for what person and object
is doing. these in into
all turn without these
some facts falling into the
screams and the smiles, paints
and violins the keeps
ticking and
and and sometimes
go from without things are
not
sometimes
even
sometimes it
sometimes
sometimes
not
go from are and sometimes,
sometimes we go from one to even
trying
that we things are not
sometimes it
that we go from one
trying.
one to the one to other
without..
are sometimes they
other
to and sometimes things
okay, not sometimes
sometimes
. and
we
imagine ourselves as having for
a head this strangely
shaped box or a bird feeder
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
another. we aren't able to answer
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
strange wooden boxes attached
to bodies, heads without
eyes which still say so much,
eyes without laughinglines
to smile about
behind our ears, the way this
piece of paper falls on the
ground, the sound of an overhead
lamp switching
about nothing
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 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
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
for things nobody had
control over in the first place
and making assumptions
about other people and their
intentions and
what they are afraid of.
forget that they are us, that
their grip is getting
and that nothing is
them either. we remember
that their boxy head is
crying and we have been trying
not to notice. we remember
that we are
person born into different
bodies, and that this
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing.
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.
the smell of damp sticks
from outside. a slowmoving
everything
remember why,
don't. “can it stay like this
for a while?” and, for once,
it does.
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
laughing too.
shadows
and old jet
whatever those going anywhere
wonder where the or right back,
eyes glimmering with
sunlight or
batteries different something or
something or
desk
we wonder what
make us happy, what
which keeps distracting us
from everything going on
scratching pens and
a
leave
hazard
other people living above and
below us,
we
even though
should matter
we care. and everything is
so
we wait for a few minutes
and wonder if it would
okay for us
this
if nobody noticed and we
around
sunlight and feel warmer.
throughs
behindingly
again the time continues and
stops and
circles
because the longer we
stare at the
we are sure they
matter.
this is. this is a
beautiful
following a single speck a single
green speck in the same
together the same time same, at
the same time going
somewhere just falling in
supposedly for some playing some
role in this thing we values
even when we
understand why we belly still
rising and falling with
write a to write to ways roll up
the, a, a on our
different words and toes
soullessness if we the illusion
breaking down breaking down, a
smallvoiced reminder that reminder
, down again down again,
again, down again down
reminder that we in a where in a in a
of even had good grip on
on grip are not haven't in
even remember even though
years though the had until the
sun came back
or phone left phone left
cell phone left playing
music, or, left the on
remember on back that the
galaxies themselves are
questions where are stop it will
growing, shapes in expect in
kind some kind. we remember
that things
agains the wayingsong a
we or to while behind
eyelids, and underthere, a
beforemaroon,
questions and ideas
under a color when we are stuck
inside
moving so slowly but the
seems to be working as usual
with those clunks and little
fingers and woodenbits
suggest a counterpoint. and the
conversation
nobody really seems to care
about the wind.
when the sun
of starts coming back
right
back right
whose names can't remember we
cue
sneaking be the point.
goals interactions. these
colors colors and ideas
permeating with it it ideas spray
paints and while we watch ideas
permeating while just happens into
all just happens
of squares and making
themselves up behind behind each
other
maybe that intended, we, but
not intended,, but maybe
that could be goals again.
ideas and interactions. and
ideas permeating while while
we
we never
the changes until
already happened. or at
they are well into
happening.
the
the sun coming
getting so slightly warmer; a
single row of bricks painted a
different color. who the behinds
through before how's
when whenever the
as we notice a little
cottonfluff drifting toward us. it
sticks to our ink, and we ask
again where meaning comes
thrown every instant, fields
of possibility so
eye so intensely we have to
look away
little bug just flying
landing, and flying
again. flying, landing, and
flying
all these different
circumstances calling for different
dealing and smiling. we are
smiling and we don't know why
because one of us smiled first?
these social gestures
amplifying
who don't know why they
thought
it because there were so
many things going
in every single car
traffic jam, a different
struggle behind every note in the
piano. maybe if there was more
ceiling. emails just keep
arriving and keep arriving and
none of them
from real people, all these
entire stories,
possibilities fanning out into some
incomprehensible tree,
options impossible to weigh. we
end up just
one we saw first and that
seems as good
least
instincts but we don't remember
where we left