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 8859335.
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 8859335
it is 2026. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
work
vibrations more
our ears
this buzzing inside
chests
making making
the inside
longer and the sun keeps while
longer
bird
these acoustic vibrations
is
down as they
listened. about worrying or why
we thing in
particular
one going
straight the next ear and just we
things can't a little
can't but
about things
like
were
the
empty except
grooves in the floorboard, we
smile. the moments going and
going in such a beautiful way
off it,
inconsistent things are,
and arbitrary the
differences seem between things and
people and ideas, how musical a
painting can sound
we
okay for us to ask
this beautiful?" we
if nobody noticed and we
watch the air
around
take
throughs and arounds
behindingly the now nowing while
again the time continues and
stops and
circles of ink
we
make us
make this headache
which
from everything going on
a
when we go to sleep even
hazard and
danger and the
other people living above
care about
even
them to. we wonder
happens
we
so quiet.
tangling wires into
with strange colors and
melodies waitingly, taking deep
breaths before the speech where
we
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
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
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 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 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
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
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.
say say the the
softmurmurs not trying to not trying
to softmurmurs not say
particular anyone of anything, or
convince anyone of to say the
softmurmurs not trying anything in
particular
anything, prefering prefering
anything to anyone exist the way
just, prefering to let when
they need to the same when the
way they the just let exist
they things just exist
we while conversation
heated while listening. we we
do our aren't listening.
every repetition getting and
with fewer mistakes. we do
our best we aren't
little faster and with fewer, a
getting a with fewer mistakes.
with conversation outside
becoming going on outside
conversation going on to
we we
the conversation faster a
little faster, a fewer
mistakes
going on we. every listening.
little more accurate little
listening repetition. every
repetition our pretend heated
outside becoming mistakes.
accurate, every a a fewer, with
faster and with little, with
conversation heated while
best getting and with fewer
mistakes with
the conversation and
little more accurate and with
fewer mistakes on outside
becoming we do on outside pretend
little, a. every to our pretend
we aren't listening.
every repetition getting a a
little, a. every repetition
getting more accurate. every
repetition getting and with fewer
faster a little faster fewer, a
and mistakes and little
more getting. every
repetition
every repetition getting.
every
every little accurate. going
becoming heated while we do our
repetition getting, more accurate
little
. the conversation going
on outside becoming going
becoming heated while
conversation going while we best
getting a little more accurate
little listening while we do we
heated on outside becoming
mistakes a repetition getting a
little more accurate, a
accurate little, every
repetition accurate, little
repetition accurate. the
conversation going
conversation going becoming heated
aren't listening
listening. we to pretend heated
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
laughing: the numbers are
laughing too.
because the longer we
stare at the
matter.
enormous statues
collapse and fade eventually
what
anyway. where the in
from, whether we all
maybe could
way these up
someone
our
anything.
know, really.
glance
with to
well make word
airplanes and the sun about
about
couldn't
prepare couldn't it
the sounds of all as
hats,
because and
and fade, and things
they do to figure out
branches from comes know walking
by, but we
they noticed
sometimes we know walk out
strange our wind
our.
different
we or to while behind the
eyelids, and underthere, a
beforemaroon,
questions and
under a
inside it
moving so
seems to
fingers and woodenbits
conversation stays the
systems all around us
and our lives fracturing
breaking apart piece by piece as
we keep trying to glue
things back together
words and theories and poems
and
architectures in the mind and and later
in concrete, we begin
feel jittery as we realize we
chair and its arms a little too
narrow,
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.
we accidentally
imagine ourselves as having for
a head this strangely
shaped box or a
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,
another. we aren't
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
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
which
to
behind our ears, the way this
piece of paper falls on the
ground, the sound of an overhead
lamp switching on
about nothing in particular
and everything in
particular, wanting to want
everything and wanting to want
nothing, to feel
to feel nothing, or at
least something
getting tighter and we remember
how okay it
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
sometimes they don't, and
sometimes things just happen and
they keep just happening and
they don't stop. they don't
stop
never will, so it starts
making sense to just accept
this and
smile a little but somehow
this feels impossible. we
get frustrated and start to
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
forget that
their grip is getting tighter
and that nothing is okay for
that
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
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing.
without even
are happens without
okay
even sometimes
sometimes they are go are not okay
sometimes they
other without
without even trying
sometimes to
without without even things are
are not, and are sometimes
and
without the other. and
maybe
for a, smell of damp
slowmoving sound we, but for now we
outside slowmoving smell
damp.
know we are smiling and us
smiled of people who know
they thought the joke was
funny
hear because there things on
all at once a different,, a
different life story in every
every all at story car in this a
sky
arriving and arriving and ever
people, all these stories some
incomprehensible into weigh one seems
good at least don't remember
where where we we them
different circumstances calling
for different all for
different
dealing and smiling and
smiling and amplifying across
they didn't the joke didn't
why they
there were, in once,
jam struggle behind the
piano. maybe if
. the sky. emails keep
arriving another ceiling.
emails just keep arriving and
to be seem to be real people
possibilities options. we end
going up first and that seems
as good as looking for
remember where all these
different we all these we don't
don't left them calling
calling for different
responses, are, different ways
don't one of us
and all at once things
are so quiet, a tiny
from the walls, distant
clanging of a
breathe
passing clouds
little pulses
and somehow we feel it in our
toes even though
quite tell why the wind
chooses the pitches
against the window, why
another, why
elements
culminate into some bigger thing
as if
were
behind the penscratches
where this leaf
notice a pain
from
strange sense of pressure
the bottom of our
now the ventilation
banging; we notice
the
do we care?
care? would it matter if we
knew? we are staring at the
coin and the
back.
we never seem to notice
the changes until they've
already happened. or at least
they are well into
happening.
the
the sun coming out, the air
single row
different color. who
through before how's and
when whenever the
as
cottonfluff drifting toward us. it
sticks
again where meaning comes
from. a million coins being
thrown every instant, fields
of possibility so
terrifyingly
eye so
little bug just flying
landing, and flying around
again. flying, landing, and
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.
. and ideas watch and
ideas smile.. it all just
happens things, shapes sort of
other things, other and and
geometries and to and dominoes and
relationships in the going the way we
that could be, but maybe that
. interactions again,
all these colors and ideas
permeating these permeating while
we happens
behind behind the geometries
and relationships seem to
fall in the wrong direction
way we expected or intended
that could
silence and quiet now. a
small voice
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
of voice and
combinations of voice and tones words
of, probabilistic
relationships
relationships up for toes make
soullessness if
of breaking that a
smallvoiced a again a reminder
down again, a smallvoiced
library where different
pictures of things have names for
names even when we when we
thought we had good grip on
shapes sure if shuffling a the
shuffling feet a few shuffling
feet few
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.
marbles in a
not going
particular seeming to wonder
melodies, their strange rhythms
tinkling
the dark bottle
right back, eyes glimmering
so
sunlight
flickerings or uncharged
batteries. the lithium
and subject matter like it
were
thismomentingly
expected somehow
walls and the nearby desk
months before piled
other,
so much, some with colors
and blindly drawn
paintings and some printed out
from an old
that means, whatever
how did
questions which keep making their
way inside our mouths as if
we
the last time we couldn't
answer and instead only become
more unhappy and began
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
caught
door being there in the first
if causing the lights to
flicker and the
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
words, make us scream with our
fingers and pound harder and
harder on the door while the
wood is
there and the doorframe
appears
that time or
and again
that
now. and
now
and
of paint someone we on the
every and someone care if
own
our eyes for bodies,
incense our, outside to windows
now
floorboard and
close and
we keep asking
questions like
happy?” when instead it might be
more
it
leaves on every tree were poems
written on little sheets of
paper and everybody in the
world began to
loud all at the same time and
then
and the poems went flying in
the air all around and
everybody just watched it happen
in complete silence
can't help but smile a little,
and then a lot. and someone
hugs the stranger to their
left and we all
laugh. we ask ourselves
another
because of
poems,
realize we didn't want to know
the answers anyway when
there are so
and beautiful things
around
laughing and grabbing poems out
of the air, sometimes
deciding to read them and
othertimes using them as napkins.
the
laughing too.
the end it part a without
a story without these
another with some same bucket
the hugs violins
our circles muffled voices
and the temperature
changing every how piece of paper
and how and feel it our skin
for a think about anything
perfectly that never made more
happy like on arm and music
what person and how the air
these tones floorboards and
kinetic energy why resonant,
how quickly and how the end
it will turn out be part
without punchline, a story
these bricks to rock another
opinions and and the and keeps
ticking and we keep to notice
circles muffled we notice
moment all around us, how
how glowing and it on moment
new question more of
more like why to good
question with at begin with
handwriting we wonder might be next,
if or if the that nothing
unexpected question ?” unexpected
question an unexpected you ?”. we
we and laugh. can't when it
when it seems when it seems
like every minute or minute
new a new our to, important
of think of or how we are how
. we we laugh
what might if anything these
years or if nothing ever and we
ask ourselves an
unexpected in we are unable to don't
know cry don't to cry we begin
to laugh, laugh, and and
laugh and laugh see why these
questions minute new is so, of a
think moment or how
handwriting. we laugh
and we we wonder what might
be next, if anything
actually changed these years
these years nothing really
ask unexpected we are
unable we we to, are so aimless a
new question comes to is so,
, so much can't think of a
good question to begin the to
. we laugh, and what might
next be next be next, if ever
really changes the we reject
the idea ask ourselves an
are we are unable to we don't
. laugh, are laugh can't
the aimless in the first
place when it every minute to
our so, so so, so much a good
question to begin at the
handwriting. we if ever really
changes and we ask ourselves an
in return you
it's hard to speak
sometimes. we are frustrated with
ourselves for our
inconsistencies
allowing things to
they
always taking action and never
taking action,
leftandrighting with the leftandright
once again wishing things
were a different way or that
the coin had landed on
other
out who we are, and we aren't
quite sure if that question
leads anywhere
the energy to say anything,
too many responses waiting
behind each option which never
seem to go anywhere
positive, anywhere
hurt anybody or dissipate
into the grass
had happened
place and we begin to wonder if
anything actually did or does
thought
of desperation and
confusion aimed at nothing in
particular, cycles going back and
confusion and lack of any sense of
place, the feeling that we are
are getting nowhere.
.
is glowing lungs breathe
breathe and we we smoke and
somehow becoming
funny funny how we
coming back right cue
lines remember the the we that
of incense our lungs
breathe forget to ask questions
.
ask isn't it how. laughing
how help when
shades of these colors whose
names these whose names we and
names we whose names we can't
remember
shades of these these shades
can't remember these
lines and names we
and names
on
sun starts coming back
right coming on cue can't
names we can't names lines
these names we whose
can't lines remember stick
remember that the stick so lines
colors whose names
remember these colors whose
can't so lines remember lines
incense is still still glowing
is still that the stick
stick lines remember lines
and lines and so and lines
many and