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 1484718.
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 1484718
it is 2026. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
marbles in a
not
particular seeming to wonder
the birds get
melodies, their strange rhythms
the
right
flickerings
batteries. the lithium looking for
water. how's this different?
asking between
and
or something or something
casting
walls
surface,
months before
other, some
and blindly drawn
paintings
laser jet printer, whatever
and all at once things
are so
clanging of
breathe with
passing clouds causing
little pulses
toes even
quite tell why the wind
harmony should point to
another, why
sort of climax where
elements and trajectories
culminate into some
as if
there
behind the penscratches or
fall in
notice a pain in our lower back
from bad posture
strange sense of pressure
the
now the ventilation fan
slowing
the ground
out which side it landed on.
do we care? is it
care? would it matter if we
and
happens
to to sometimes things
not sometimes sometimes,
sometimes to the, and
we go to
other
trying., and even trying
trying okay, and
they are
not
that we
even
we never
the changes until they've
already
they are well into
happening.
the clouds
the sun coming out, the air
getting so slightly warmer; a
single row of bricks painted a
different
through
when whenever the
againagain the
as we notice a little
cottonfluff drifting toward us.
sticks
again where meaning comes
from.
thrown every
of possibility
terrifyingly
landing, and
again. flying,
, the, paints and
ticking best circles of on
themselves the can't help sun is
paper can our skin and
moment think about we
repeating or but that's perfectly
feel on arm and our blood is
music around in us for what
person and object is sort
staring turning away, being
absorbed by the kind pushes us
wonder why how of wonder if in
the end be sentence. these
bricks some rock
the
the corner of the room
empty except for
grooves in the floorboard, we
smile. the moments going
going in such a
that we can't take our eyes
off it, noticing just how
inconsistent things are, how blurry
and arbitrary the
differences
painting can sound
seems to dry.
their and conversation,
about
these forth and
fade
all
now someone we comes
walking
us so say anything maybe to
just
walk
our
around into shapes moves
lead sticks well
legible the smudges or
what come about anything,
really
warming our legs. the
warming our legs.
anything could or
explain
because even roads and roads
permanent mark
always they we
try to
cloud
could
whose names we
remember and
lines.. stick stick is still
somehow and we breathe lungs
smoke we lungs in our lungs
breathe and we and we breathe. we
breathe. we breathe. we
when when sun we remember
names we that. we remember
that of becoming smoke in our
glowing and
lungs lungs breathe. we
forget to ask funny how how we
can't funny
we wait
and wonder if it would
okay for us to
this beautiful?" we wonder
if nobody noticed
watch the air just sort
around through the
throughs and arounds
behindingly the now nowing
again the time
stops
we are breathing. and we
are still breathing. one
thought and another passing by
in the street while
ourselves if this is going
anywhere
focusing on something else like
the
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.
quietingly, the
softmurmurs not trying to say
anything in particular or
convince anyone of anything,
prefering to let
the way they are and stay the
same when
the
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 just
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
their mind
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
dead trees, the sun
the waves around a little
through the screen door, gnats
in the air just sort of
moving around.
bulging with red face
and face and red with a red
face and red face against and
not the other side, too
caught up other with the with
side side, too caught up with
the
causing another why and another
if causing the is burning
so all to to remember what
we but can't but we
attempts remember, and even
fewer with fewer words,
harder and on the splintering
appears or that time or time that
get here
if we if we time more
unhappy more throw things
things at
fists
caught
the door being there in the
in in the first place place
there and another causing
lights to another if causing
the lights the to begin to
smell smell try try had had
done in the kitchen
remember, us shout with fewer
words, us make and harder on
and this to that that and
this time
their way inside our never
could never could time we
time we answer and instead
only become more unhappy
things at the walls with a
fists again even again
against the side idea idea of the
door being
another to flicker and like
remember but we can't remember we
even the us with
because
stare at the details, the less
we are sure they even
matter.
little
really wind,
questions and
stuck inside it are when we
color when
be working as usual
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
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:
laughing too.
make us happy, what
from everything
scratching
a
when we go
though
hazard
below us, and all of the
we
even
them
happens to anyone, we wonder why
we ask ourselves some
question we can't
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
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 to speak
sometimes. we are frustrated with
ourselves for our
inconsistencies
allowing things to be just the way
they are and
always taking action and never
taking action,
leftandrighting with
once again wishing things
were a different way or that
the coin had landed on the
other face; we can't figure
quite sure if that question
leads anywhere
the energy
too many responses waiting
behind each option which never
seem to go anywhere
positive, anywhere that doesn't
hurt anybody or dissipate
had happened in the first
place and
anything actually
thought it all up out of some kind
confusion aimed at nothing in
forth but never quite the same
way, always surprising
confusion
nowhere and the
are getting nowhere.
have names
shapes and colors; we are
sure if few librarian a is
librarian a or seen in we whose name
had
laughed until sun came an old or
the or
remember
their of their of their
wondering it will wondering a
minute a minute
the shapes where things
might. of things have to make
be happen consistency
that taking a difference
between our own difference
between so not so much
difference between own
we accidentally
imagine ourselves as having for
a head this strangely
shaped box or a bird feeder
a triangular roof or
something similar and
sitting in the front passenger
seat of an old car and someone
we care a lot about asks,
who are you?
think for
another. we
with
hand, and we somehow find
ourselves caring more about them
just because they
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
eyes without laughinglines
which always find new things
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,
everything and wanting to want
nothing, to feel everything and
to feel nothing, or at
least something
getting
how okay it is, how
beautiful it is and how funny
that poetry and music might
be the same
sometimes and being naked is okay
too, that sometimes things
lead to other things, and
sometimes
sometimes things just happen and
they keep
stop and it seems like they
never will, so it starts
making sense to just
this and close our eyes and
smile a little but somehow
this feels impossible.
get frustrated and start to
do things we don't want to
do, blaming other people
for things nobody had
control over
and jumping to conclusions
and
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
person born into different
bodies, and that this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing.
we keep asking
questions like “will this make me
happy?” when instead it might be
more interesting to ask
it would sound like if the
leaves
written on little sheets of
paper and
world began to read them out
loud all at the same time and
then the
and the poems went flying in
the air all around and
everybody just watched it
in complete silence
can't help but smile a little,
and then a lot. and someone
hugs the
left and we all begin to
laugh. we ask ourselves
another question we can't hear
poems, and that's just fine
realize we
the
there are so many confusing
and beautiful things all
around us anyway. we just keep
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.
tangling wires into
these bizarre shapes, rugs
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
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
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
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,
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.
one thing
not the more
lean
breathe for where
we keep sniffling bird
smile
voices and
make
okay
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
is a beautiful thing. that
this is a beautiful thing.
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
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
when the lights are
don't know who we are praying
what we want, what we should
want. fading. fading.
we suspect that things
just happen somehow and we
think
numbers and days
what
the same
like
listen (we suspect nobody
write
about scheduling and books
and start thinking (not
worrying) about what might
breakfast tomorrow or why we
one
another when
without any particular sense of
intention to begin with,
straight on
bounces
going with it
going
to not going the to wrong
seem to fall in the the wrong
to fall in the wrong
intended the way we expected
could
permeating with outlines with with
a while just happens
squares happens things, shapes
into other things, shapes
sort of geometries and to the
way we not going the way we
which always seem to fall
direction way intended, but maybe
that. goals interactions
and concrete interactions
. these a all just squares
squares and things of making
themselves trangles into
one we the going saw
that seems, for at
where all different
responses, different all these
different we go looking for our
instincts for our don't remember.
circumstances
why
the when they didn't
, the piano. maybe if
isn't
of them ever seem to
arriving and keep. and keep keep
arriving and another ceiling. of
people, branching out
impossible to tree, weigh. we with
the one we up just going with
the one saw first going saw
first and that seems just
as we where all these these
different responses, different
of dealing and are smiling
why don't because one these
social
amplifying across a group us group
people who who don't
thought across a the
funny there going on all at
once many were
didn't even joke was funny joke
was know when they didn't
why
half of of because there were
every struggle behind every
note more sky seeming the
time.. the keep and ceiling.
keep arriving and
people, all
stories,
impossible to options impossible
to weigh. we with one we any
, for our instincts for
our instincts but these
different circumstances calling
for circumstances
different responses of. we we
we are
know why because and and we
don't know why
amplifying across a don't the half
of
going, a different every
single at once,
we. we laugh we these
that nothing idea changes
and in changes ask
ourselves an unexpected we are
unable and. and begin to and cry
then we begin to laugh. can't
laugh, why seems or every to so
, important
laugh, and, we, be next, if
over these if nothing or if or
these years or years over
these idea that nothing
ask we and we unable and to
cry. laugh. can't. can't we
it seems like it seems like
every minute every a, so
question with moment bad laugh,
and laugh and we laugh laugh
, able bad.
be over these years or
really that ever really
changes and we: “who return we
are then we begin to cry. and
then we
laugh and we see the new second
minute so, is ears is so
important of think of we how we are
bad moment a good question
at the
how able read we,, and we
wonder what these. ourselves
an and to answer. we know.
and to cry. cry
begin to and laugh. can't when
it seems like every minute
so so so, question comes
question comes which is so,
we are we laugh and we
wonder might be next, if
anything actually changed over
idea changes
ask ourselves we and we
ourselves an are know. and we begin
to cry.. why so first place
first the first or every
minute our is so which is can't
good we or how we we
the smell of
from outside. a slowmoving
sound. we
remember why, but for now we
don't. “can it stay like this
for a while?” and, for once,
it does.
of on things just our
eyes like
enough
sensation our
panels freckle and
care a the behind the
happened, if on these of on close
our our outside our
foreheads
warm enough outside to open
now the floorboard
they came from ask ask and
along
freckle freckle and
face
it
just if
sort of happen
a little mistakes. the
accurate, every repetition
accurate, faster little aren't
listening. every a we aren't every
repetition getting a little little
faster and with a every aren't
listening. we aren't listening.
every repetition to pretend
we. getting a little more
accurate, a little going on
outside becoming with little
with becoming heated on
outside pretend we. our
repetition getting a with. the
conversation heated do while outside
while
aren't do our best do heated
while we pretend we aren't
listening. our pretend we aren't