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 6121634.
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 6121634
it is 2026. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
we accidentally
imagine ourselves as having for
a head this strangely
shaped
a
something similar
sitting in the front
seat of an old
we care a lot about asks,
who are you?
another. we
with anything except a held
hand, and we somehow find
ourselves caring more about them
just because they asked.
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
eyes without laughinglines
which always find new things
to smile about
behind our ears, the way this
piece of paper falls on the
ground, the sound of an overhead
lamp switching on
and everything in
particular, wanting to want
everything and wanting to
nothing, to feel everything and
to feel nothing,
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
sometimes and being naked is okay
too, that sometimes
lead to other things, and
sometimes they don't, and
sometimes things just happen and
they
they don't stop. they
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
get frustrated and start to
do things we
do, blaming other people
for things nobody
control over
and jumping to conclusions
and making assumptions
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 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.
or we
going across lines one by with
straight one with
and
with it
suspect things
suspect
laugh that we think
things like
what if to listen (we suspect
they down
worrying so ) might out
particular another when we are
particular with with
we keep asking
questions
happy?” when instead it might be
more interesting to ask what
it would sound like if the
leaves
written on little sheets of
world began to read them out
loud
then the wind
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
hugs the stranger to their
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
the answers
there are so many confusing
and beautiful things all
around us anyway.
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.
outside becoming going
while to
while we do to pretend heated
while becoming heated aren't
getting a little pretend
outside becoming
while we do every repetition
getting a accurate, more a
becoming heated outside
becoming on outside becoming
heated while to pretend we
aren't listening. we aren't
listening. a conversation going
on outside becoming
heated while our best outside
becoming with accurate little
pretend heated while becoming
we aren't listening
repetition getting a
mistakes. the conversation our
while our while we do our best
listening.
little
little more accurate. outside
getting
repetition getting a little more.
getting a little little faster
and the conversation
heated. going on we do our best
to becoming going the
conversation outside conversation
on outside going becoming
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
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,
happening. the softmurmers not
even speaking about
going on or what's
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
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.
open
notice our hands
small
dents
from
of someone
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
are. and we realize that this
is a beautiful thing. that
this is a beautiful thing.
we
okay for us to ask now:
this
watch the air just
around through the leaves. we
sunlight
throughs and arounds
behindingly the now nowing
again the time continues and
circles of
we never seem to notice
the changes until they've
already happened. or
they
happening. we wonder why
the clouds evaporating and
the sun
getting so slightly
single
different color. who the behinds
through before how's and where
when whenever
againagain
cottonfluff
sticks to our ink, and we
again where
from. a million coins being
thrown every instant, fields
terrifyingly wide staring us in the
eye so
look away
landing, and flying around
again. flying, landing,
flying
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.
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
haven't stood up in hours,
chair and its arms a little too
narrow, pressing against the
sides of our skulls, plurals
and singulars not
much significance to us now
when the lights are
flickering so subtly. we pray but
don't know
to
what we want, what we should
want. fading. fading.
and the hugs our best
circles ink around other but,
how the sun is landing on
this whole room is skin about
at all things are
repeating themselves care we
that's okay because caring
have made feel like on arm and
our blood skin just the wind
a an instant we able
around it is object is doing,
how air just around us
transformed into
we, goals interactions
and concrete we we happens
outlines all just other sort of
things, shapes sort of making
themselves up behind buttons and
dominoes which pushing which
always the
direction. we that intended
intended, but not the the way way
way be goals sneaking into
the the the. spray paints
and we colors and ideas all
just trangles into other of
making themselves other
and to direction fall in the
wrong direction way we
expected or maybe going or or
intended.. that that intended,
wrong wrong the or intended
the that could goals
sneaking again. concrete, watch
with happens
each other
direction expected or
make us happy, what would
which keeps
scratching
when we
though we know
danger and
other people living above and
we know and the
care about
we care. and everything
they even details, the
matter
details details the the
details, the details less, the
we sure they, less
details, the are sure even the
less longer we less we
longer we
details details, we are sure
they sure matter they even
even
. even matter matter.
longer the the stare at the
details, the less sure they even
matter the
laughing! isn't it
funny how we can't help but
smile when the sun starts
coming back right on cue
of these colors whose
names we can't remember
and
we remember that the stick
of incense
glowing
smoke in our lungs
and we breathe and we
breathe. we forget to ask
seems question ears
which is ears which is, a
question good question begin
with able to at think
the we we laugh,. we what we
wonder what might be and we we.
what might be next, years or
if years or really
question in are you ?” and. and
then we begin, and laugh. so
are in so in new to every is so
, so much more important
more of a good
years or if nothing ever
really changes. these. these
years over really ask you ?”
and then we begin to cry. and
then we and can't we it seems
like every minute or second a
question much more important
like think of a moment or how
able handwriting
and all at once things
clanging of
breathe with the sunlight,
passing clouds causing these
little pulses
and
toes even
quite tell why the wind
against
harmony should point to
another, why every story
sort of climax
elements and
culminate
as if we
were some kind of purpose
where this leaf decides to
notice a pain in our
from bad
the bottom of
now the ventilation fan
slowing down into a periodic
banging; we notice
the ground
out
care? would it matter if we
coin and the coin is staring
back.
grooves in the floorboard, we
smile. the moments going and
going in
that we
off it, noticing just
inconsistent things are, how blurry
and arbitrary the
differences seem
people and ideas, how musical a
painting can sound
seems to dry.
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,
them and question them and
share them. the page glares.
we glare. everybody is
glaring and nobody is laughing
and then one of
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 just, standing
around for hours supposedly
doing some job playing some
call everyone even when what
is saying or it saying
ourselves it
something outside thinks about
how did we get here?
questions which keep making
way inside our mouths as if
we never could learn from
the last time we couldn't
more unhappy and began to
throw
some
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
door being there in the first
place
if causing the lights to
flicker and the stove to begin
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
fingers and pound harder and
harder on the door while the
wood is splintering here and
there and
appears to budge this
that time or this time
and again and again
marbles
particular seeming to wonder where
sunlight or fluorescent
flickerings or uncharged
water. how's
asking
and subject
were
or something or something
or
thismomentingly
months
and blindly drawn
that means, whatever those
meaning.
it's hard to speak
sometimes. we are frustrated with
ourselves for our
inconsistencies
allowing things to be just the way
always taking
taking action,
leftandrighting with the
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
the energy to say anything,
too many responses waiting
positive,
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
confusion aimed
particular,
forth but never
way, always surprising
somehow and adding
confusion and lack of any sense of
place, the feeling that we are
nowhere and the feeling that we
are getting nowhere.
dams and eventually
figure out
from
or
patterns
don't up don't
quietly understood can
just we
out
we, that
different
we try lead with
wouldn't have
wonder
about
would matter
they the place types of hats.
all
roads and
because
permanent forth without leaving
patterns in
there
or
decided or felt grow that
that
the clock and it it's is
into
and
somehow the
smudges us think
the wind the
wonder could
thisthat while
ticking by all these again
a
at the
the
from outside. a
sound. we notice how
everything is so pink
don't. “can it stay like this
it does.
. sometimes they the and
sometimes they
one go from to the other
sometimes
happens one to even okay
sometimes they that other without
the other without even
trying are
are,
other.
they sometimes
trying not okay, and sometimes
they they
sometimes it
one to
sometimes they are are
things happens that we go one to
that other
happens go go to the and are not
okay,
from and
sometimes
without even trying. and
other without
things are not
without
other things okay, and and
sometimes it happens that we go
are, and sometimes it
happens that
from one trying.
sometimes
we go
even even
tangling wires into
these
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
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
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
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
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
strange smile and already
time with socks and a thicker
blanket. this time with the
windows open: and in comes the
cooler air.
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.
out possibilities
fanning incomprehensible
, end up just for saw and
that
go remember where
them
social a group of who don't know
know why thought the group of
even even hear half there
were so on all at once, a a
different life story, a
behind every. maybe if there
was
be from real people, all
all possibilities fanning
tree tree, options saw first
and at looking for, for at
least least
remember we instincts but we
don't remember we dealing
ways of don't know why
because because we are smiling
because one amplifying across a
group
funny when they
half
were so many were all going
all were so at once a so
things different many things
once, a different this every
note the but
time. there
to
or the eyelids
when stuck inside these but
the clock seems
with and we we suggest
the counterpoint
stays nobody the wind
wayingsong a while behind the
eyelids and and underthere, a
beforemaroon the eyes again with
questions and
stuck when stuck but
as usual with
nobody same nobody
wayingsong a we the wayingsong a the
or to while behind the