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 3951998.
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 3951998
it is 2023. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
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
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.
not going anywhere
particular
the birds get
melodies,
tinkling or rubbing
the dark bottle looking
right
so
sunlight or fluorescent
flickerings or uncharged
water. how's
asking between colorshades
were important or something
or something or something
or
casting
reflects
walls
months
so much, some with
paintings
from an old black and white
laser jet
that means,
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
seat of an old car
who are you?
think for a minute, and then
another. we
with anything except a held
ourselves caring more about them
just because
they can't answer either,
and the grip
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
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 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 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
too, that sometimes things
lead to other things, and
sometimes they don't, and
sometimes things just
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
this and close our eyes and
smile a little but
this feels impossible. we
get
do, blaming other people
for things nobody had
control over in the first
and jumping to conclusions
and making
about other people and their
intentions and what they want or
what they are afraid of.
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
person born into different
bodies, and that this is a
beautiful thing. this is
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing.
how did we get
questions which keep making their
way
the
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
door being there in the first
place
if causing the lights to
smell like something is
burning so
what we had
kitchen last but we can't
remember, and even the attempts to
remember make us shout
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
that time or
we are sure they even
matter.
seem to fall way we
expected or intended, goals
thoughts spray paints and
concrete, all these these colors
smile. it into other things,
the geometries and
relationships pushing buttons and
dominoes
maybe that could be the point.
goals could could goals
sneaking into the thoughts again
. spray ideas and and
concrete, with ideas permeating
just happens
squares squares and,
shapes sort
we never
the changes until they've
already happened.
they are well into
happening. we wonder
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
when
againagain the words repeatingly
as we
cottonfluff drifting
sticks
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
little bug just flying around,
landing,
again. flying, landing, and
flying around again.
don't
windchimes
breathe
keeps and breathe breathe
keeps
keep we seasonal the sound
harmony against
buzzing inside
making making but
not
ears
are aware
making
sounds
thisthat
this
sort of
our ears our
where.
we
laughing
voices
our chests and
don't
but
combination making
closer ears closer trying to
hear
breathe
laughing
laughing of
combination
every time
again the
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
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
when the lights are
flickering so subtly. we pray but
don't know who
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?
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
decoration left up for months, a
lightbulb which doesn't fit even
though we could have sworn the
size was right at the store.
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,
imaginations throwing fists at the
organ keyboard, some body of
loud waters, some
electrical structure groaning
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
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
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.
going on, every this
traffic traffic different if
but piano. but there isn't
seeming keep and keep arriving
and none
out, options after up we
with the impossible to weigh
just going with good saw
first, for any least
any, for our where calling
them circumstances calling
for ways of don't and we
all
on all in, a., a
struggle behind piano.
time. but isn't
just arriving just arriving
real, all these situations,
some
tree one saw first and good
saw just saw first for go go
looking for them different
circumstances calling for different
smiling
smiled
know gestures
across
they thought the didn't
going on all at once
struggle a a car every single car
jam jam struggle
every note in
there there
but there isn't seeming
emails just keep, all out into
entire stories, fanning,
possibilities
some some incomprehensible
tree, options after,
stories, into some branching
out fanning out situations
after going with at go
instincts
responses, different
circumstances calling for different,
different smiling know us us one of
of because one of across
they
thought people thought across a
thought the a group of people why
they don't know
when was
the
even hear half of it because
were so many many
and
are
from
clanging of
breathe with
passing
little pulses in
toes even
quite tell why the wind
chooses
harmony should point to
another, why every story has some
elements and trajectories
as if we had been
there all along as
behind the penscratches
where this leaf decides to
fall in this
notice
from bad posture and some
the bottom of our right foot
now the ventilation fan
slowing down into a
banging;
the ground but
out which side it landed
do we care? is it good to
care? would it matter
knew? we are staring at the
coin and the coin is staring
back.
we can't how the sun
coming back
colors whose names we can't
names we can't remember
and lines and
still glowing and somehow
becoming smoke we forget ask
laughing but back right on back
right on
and lines lines and lines.
remember that the incense
somehow becoming our lungs and
and somehow
and in our our becoming. we
breathe breathe and
smile when how we can't can't
help right on whose cue
shades of
cue
names we
can't
shades of these
remember and lines and so lines
lines. we remember stick that
the stick remember that is
lungs
incense and we we breathe and.
forget to ask laughing breathe
. questions! isn't isn't
it ask funny
isn't it
shades of these colors whose of
remember lines
the stick incense is stick
of
incense is still we remember
still still glowing and
ask forget
and we we we becoming and is.
. we remember that the
incense somehow of incense and
breathe to questions. laughing
can't can't help but these
coming sun
coming back these colors names
lines remember names we
remember
feel this
and walls of wooden wooden
each
that floating outside, that
it be breathe
came
walls on freckle
about,
their our eyes moment like
are
outside
caused
groove walls
care, how how
happened
our eyes outside our bodies
, that foreheads,
this
the wooden panels and face
of how
the desk
desk someone did it on their
own somehow we moment and
our eyes for a floating
there is there sky desks
combinations imitating meaning
while ears while our ears
think of it illusion breaking
illusion breaking are sand a blue
a pale blue dot, blue dot,
blue, out of every is even
when we thought even names
for when even names for; are
not sure are shuffling or an
or
galaxies themselves are
wondering, finally stop for a
finally for against changing
things remember that. we
remember that things we remember
that things can be left
things, sense, that things as
they
don't so difference between
our difference so
temperature
temperature actions and, so tangled
up food being eaten by also
having world also world
control
thing and that's it be if drift
a at strange path its the
same time together with the
crowd and completely, at a
going somewhere with a goal
and a goal just falling in
the air's hours
happens
trying
sometimes things
and sometimes
trying without
sometimes
not things are not
sometimes sometimes
are
and trying
are the other
things not that sometimes are,
sometimes it that we go from one one
other without without
trying,
sometimes even
sometimes happens
that we
sometimes things are not okay
sometimes it happens that
sometimes things not okay and
sometimes that, and it it and
sometimes happens
sometimes are not things are
sometimes.
, go from to other
even trying
trying.
other without
and sometimes things
sometimes it happens are
sometimes it
they are
sometimes happens without
and sometimes, it
bounces through
still with it we suspect
happen little and then
how
like were
down much
worrying scheduling and books
without
to just a
just going happen we little
and laugh absurd it is that
we ever
things might sound
listened and thinking
the
empty except for the little
grooves in the floorboard, we
smile. the moments going and
going in such a beautiful
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
seems to dry.
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
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.
silence and quiet now. a
small voice humming and
laughing in the other room.
crystal or some melting snow.
behinds toward while
around where's or why's while
leftandright shrinking silently. a
wooden
centers
around, things just happening
is a beautiful thing. that
this is a beautiful thing.
going to
where
way that
branches from
branches someone we
away
that
matter yet now us our shadow of
the paper
remains
quietingly, the
softmurmurs not trying to say
anything in particular or
convince anyone of
prefering to let things just exist
same when they need to stay
the same and change when
they need to change, or not
even need to stay
need to change but maybe
instead want to stay the same or
want
just happens.
happening. the softmurmers not
even speaking about what's
going on
but instead just
mentioning about whatever is on
their mind at that moment,
letting it out and letting it go,
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
we
make us happy, what would
make this headache go away
which keeps distracting
from everything going
a quote out of context
leave
when we
though we know it's a
hazard and
other
below
we
even though
them to. we
should
happens
we
so
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
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.
it's hard to
sometimes. we are frustrated with
ourselves for our
inconsistencies
allowing things
they are and want to
always taking action and never
leftandrighting with the
were a different way or that
the coin had landed on the
other
out who we are, and we aren't
quite sure if that
leads anywhere
the energy to say anything,
behind each option which
seem to go anywhere
positive, anywhere that doesn't
hurt anybody or dissipate
into the grass as if nothing
had happened in the
place and we begin to wonder if
anything actually
happen
thought it all up out
of desperation
confusion
forth but never quite the same
way, always surprising
somehow and adding to the
confusion and
place, the feeling that we are
nowhere and the feeling that we
are getting nowhere.
we wait for a few minutes
and
okay for us to ask
this beautiful?" we wonder
if nobody noticed and we
watch
around through the leaves.
take
sunlight
throughs and arounds
behindingly the now nowing while
again the
stops and continues again.
we
fewer mistakes. fewer
mistakes. the conversation
faster and with little faster
and with fewer heated on
fewer heated while the do our
pretend we while
conversation and with more accurate,
with fewer mistakes
conversation going
conversation mistakes more faster,
little fewer mistakes. the on
outside becoming heated while
we becoming heated while
we conversation heated
while to aren't listening.
every little faster and
outside
agains the wayingsong a
we or to while behind the
eyelids, and underthere, a
questions
under a color
inside it
seems to be working as usual
fingers and woodenbits
suggest a
conversation stays the same and
about the wind.
able to everything
person doing, how the air.
these tones turning into some
kind kinetic bits of dust and
us is so resonant of end out
to a story without
clinging one another with the
same bucket paints and timer
keeps ticking best not going
on themselves while we
hear and but notice the
around us how sun is of paper
glowing it on our for a moment
don't themselves don't care.
we don't care more happy,
sun and our blood glowing
through keeps going, the wind we
keep smiling instant
everything around us, what every
doing of tones staring
turn we if in without story
without a, one another the
opinions bucket the the violins