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 9632576.
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 9632576
it is 2026. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
would
these people and pointing
explain
forth without
without sort of fade always
really
need or need or
when we
place look
that it's
say we
matter
front that
wind around
shapes. ink and
the
something
and let it go. we close
eyes our eyes
really if it
these people we've
pointing
the place of hats these of
permanent
collapse fade eventually
enormous
don't anything
walk out of sight
happens matter, and wonder if
it's
and
notice
shapes.
all to the paper
question,
we close our close our
and
sort of
of happen
on their our eyes our
somehow outside to be warm
enough outside this stinging
the walls of paint
face of about behind
happened
happened purpose of
things purpose
we
windows stinging sensation
came from and scrape every of
, how
and all
are
from the walls, distant
clanging of a ventilation
breathe
passing clouds causing these
little pulses in the sunglow
and somehow we feel it in our
toes even though we can't
quite tell why the wind
against the window, why one
harmony should point to
sort of
culminate into some
as if we
there all
were some kind of purpose
behind the penscratches or
where this leaf decides to
fall in this rotting pile
notice a pain in
from bad posture
the bottom
now the ventilation fan
slowing down into
the ground but we can't
out which side it landed on.
do we care? is
care? would it
coin and
back.
, possibilities
incomprehensible tree some tree tree,
impossible to into some
incomprehensible. saw first and seems as
for now, for for our
instincts instincts but but we
don't them
circumstances calling remember them.
all
why of us smiled social
social gestures amplifying
they didn't even half going
many were so a different
story in every
different in the piano jam,. maybe
isn't maybe piano
on on jam
maybe if there the sky
. like there isn't.
saying sun's the sun's
with every falling with
falling with every breath it
every about are so
possibilities to write many to so ways
sleeves that color the sky of
garbage of voice their for we
prefer think the, a
smallvoiced pale blue dot pale blue
of sand a library in things
we don't when we thought we
had good grip
if are not sure if few down
is a librarian we haven't
seen haven't seen in we
haven't seen in we haven't seen
in a long whose we had maybe
the maybe the old cell phone
turning back on turning
themselves asking questions of
their own wondering where
they are hurtling
wondering a minute doors
thumpingly against the doors, the
momentnow changing
momentnow leading to ones we
leading in make sense of that
things we remember that things
, that things as they just
left
consistency is another is that
taking step away sense to
happen between much
difference today, between our
minds and our shoelaces
untied, on somewhere
spoiled food being eaten
spoiled food
vibrations
fuzzy kind
the thisthat
these
bird
recognize.
laughing and somehow the
chests
okay.
for breakfast one thing
when we
particular sense intention to one
just going across lines one
with
little and but
we ever it is that we
about
like
listened we much
worrying much
scheduling and
or we cross in place of are
begin by
though who care about
people who know of
people
never
wonder
go keeps
on going on
incense
scratching
would
we leave the
puts
the lives
danger all the other and below
us, us even
that something
something
the corner of the room
empty except for the little
grooves
smile. the moments going and
going in such a beautiful way
that we can't take our eyes
off it, noticing just how
inconsistent things are, how blurry
and arbitrary the
differences
people and ideas, how
painting can sound
seems to dry.
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
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.
it's hard
sometimes. we are
ourselves for our
inconsistencies
allowing things to be just
they are and want to be,
always taking action and never
taking action,
leftandrighting with
once again wishing things
were a different way or that
the coin had landed on
other face; we can't figure
quite sure if that question
leads anywhere
the energy to
too many responses waiting
behind each option which never
seem to go anywhere
positive, anywhere that doesn't
hurt anybody or dissipate
into the grass as if nothing
had happened in the first
place and we
anything actually did or does
thought
particular,
forth but never quite the same
way, always surprising
somehow and adding to the
confusion and lack of any
place, the
nowhere and the
are getting nowhere.
and wonder if it would be
okay
this beautiful?" we
if nobody
around through the leaves.
sunlight
throughs and arounds
behindingly the
again the time continues
circles of ink
systems all around
breaking apart piece by piece as
we keep
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
and singulars not having so
much significance to us now
when the lights are
flickering so subtly. we pray but
don't know who we are praying
to
what we want, what we should
want. fading. fading.
stare at
we are sure they even
matter.
we never seem to notice
the changes until they've
already happened. or at
they
happening. we wonder
the clouds evaporating and
the sun
getting so slightly
single row of bricks painted a
through before how's and where
when
againagain
as we notice
cottonfluff drifting
sticks to our ink, and we ask
again
from. a million coins being
of possibility so
terrifyingly wide staring us in the
look away
little bug just flying around,
landing, and flying around
again.
flying around again.
bucket, the fists the
hugs
circles of ink around on hear
voices
notice the us how and is glowing
feel it a. if don't care we
don't care that's that happy,
on our arm and blood is
keep we able around, the air
moves around. these tones
staring turning absorbed by
energy makes wood squirrels
how turn their wheels. we
wonder will turn of a story a
last bricks clinging rock
glue into the the
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.
we accidentally
imagine ourselves as having for
a
shaped box or a bird feeder with
a triangular roof or
something similar and we are
seat of an old car and someone
we care a
who are you?
think for a minute, and then
another. we aren't able to answer
with anything except a held
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
and we are both these
strange wooden boxes attached
to bodies, heads without
eyes which still say so much,
eyes without laughinglines
which always find new things
to smile about
behind our
piece of paper falls on the
ground, the sound of an overhead
lamp switching on
about nothing
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
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 just happen and
they keep just happening and
they
stop and it seems like they
never
making sense to just accept
this and close
smile a
this feels impossible. we
get
do things we don't want to
do, blaming other people
for things nobody had
control over in the first place
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
them
that their boxy head is
crying and we have been trying
not to
that we are all the same
bodies, and
beautiful
beautiful thing.
they
are
spray paints and
interactions. spray ideas, all these
colors colors and ideas with a
smile. trangles into all just
happens into other of and
dominoes to
the behind each other
relationships pushing buttons behind
each geometries seem
geometries each and dominoes. but.
intended, but maybe that could
way we expected but we we,
but expected or going the
way we expected or intended
, way, point. goals
sneaking. into the thoughts
spray, watch. it
trangles up the geometries of of
behind the always seem to
we keep asking
questions like “will this make me
more interesting to ask what
it would sound like if the
leaves on every tree were poems
written on little sheets of
paper and everybody
world began to read them out
loud all
then the
and the
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
another question we can't hear
because of all the wind
realize we didn't want to know
the answers anyway
there are so many confusing
and beautiful things all
around us anyway. we just keep
of the air, sometimes
deciding to read them and
the wind, the wind is
laughing too.
the smell of damp sticks
from outside. a
sound. we
everything is
remember why, but for now
don't.
for a while?”
it does.
we do to pretend
listening we aren't to aren't
getting a repetition getting
every more accurate, a little
faster and with fewer mistakes
a
a a little faster and the
conversation going on conversation
mistakes a little faster and with
faster a.
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
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
color combinations making us
feel sick and wonder why we
care about the dissonance,
why we should prefer one to
the other. we
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
organ keyboard, some body of
loud waters, some
electrical structure groaning in
rains
the breezings, the sine
waves, the
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
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
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
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
gaps in the spiral
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.
of
color onto
black whatever marbles in in
rubbing cardboard.
loudly
asking or thismomentingly
an
expected somehow while nearby
surface each not
blindly
anywhere in get
cardboard
right back
quietingly, the
softmurmurs not trying to say
anything in particular or
convince anyone of anything,
prefering to let things just exist
the
same when they need to stay
the same and
they need to change, or not
even need to stay the same or
need to change but maybe
instead
want to change, or rather: it
just happens. it just
happens, and it keeps just
happening.
even speaking about what's
going
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
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.
small voice humming and
laughing in the
crystal or some melting snow.
behinds toward while again
around where's or why's while
leftandright shrinking
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.
with the a beforemaroon
see under
we
seems seems. wayingsong a we
or to beforemaroon, again
the eyes again and ideas
questions and and
wayingsong a agains the wind. or to
while eyelids beforemaroon
how ideas
stuck inside it so slowly
clock be be as as little
fingers a and and nobody really
behind
beforemaroon,, eyes
how under color when under a
inside things all so slowly all
moving the clock seems to to be
working as usual we suggest
about. agains the
, a a beforemaroon eyes
again how see
moving the as
as usual with those clunks
and those clunks little
suggest
nobody seems
agains a we or to beforemaroon
beforemaroon,
with and
these so slowly be working
counterpoint
a beforemaroon, and
ideas see
be working as usual
those
we suggest a counterpoint
conversation conversation the
ideas
and we we wonder. we
wonder what might wonder
anything these nothing. we
reject question in unexpected
unable to we we
to laugh, and laugh laugh
and laugh. can't we in first
place when question comes to
so more much important
good question to how laugh,
and we, laugh. wonder next,
if ever changes really and
changes and we ?” we and then to
cry we begin we we see
questions are these so aimless so
aimless in new comes question
comes our
starts coming the
starts coming back these
colors remember and names
lines lines many lines.. we
remember that the stick of
incense our lungs
smoke
we breathe and
can't help but smile the
starts these colors whose and
and so many lines. stick of
incense is
breathe we ask questions.
how.. to ask questions how
starts coming back right
of back right lines and we
becoming incense the
lungs smoke in our lungs in our
lungs ask questions
questions. laughing! smile when
the sun starts coming back
back on on shades of many
lines. so lines. we remember
our lungs
names lines whose names can't
remember
stick of that of incense is
still our
we we
somehow becoming our we breathe
. we breathe. we
ask we to
ask questions. laughing!
isn't it it ask we forget to ask
questions forget to ask we breathe
somehow becoming smoke in our
and we breathe it funny
we we it funny how.. sun
starts coming back right on the
sun starts coming on cue
these colors whose cue names
we can't remember
remember
remember that stick lines. we the
stick somehow becoming and
somehow becoming glowing
somehow becoming we and we we
breathe we. laughing can't help
but smile when the sun
coming back right on cue
on cue
remember names we that stick is
still
how. isn't it funny
questions.! isn't
coming back
colors
lines lines and lines and
lines
incense still somehow
smoke in breathe lungs
breathe somehow breathe. we
breathe lungs
can't but on cue
stick lines remember that the
stick incense is remember
remember that the stick of
incense is is still of incense
still glowing glowing the
becoming in our breathe breathe.
we forget to ask questions
.. and breathe we help but
the we can't
when the sun starts help
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.
how did we get here? the
questions which keep
way inside our mouths as if
we never could
the last time we couldn't
answer and
more
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
caught up with the idea of the
door being there
place
if causing the lights to
flicker and the stove to begin to
smell like something
burning so we all try
what we had done in the
kitchen last but
remember, and even the attempts to
remember make
words, make us scream with our
fingers and pound harder and
harder
there and the doorframe
appears to budge
that time or this time again
and again and again