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 7040283.
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 7040283
it is 2023. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
the they
ourselves where
groove and
a lot someone each each
knot someone
our foreheads warm,
outside we breathe and
floorboard came
paint every of in
someone did it
happen on their
we are
our bodies, that that the
incense
floating
notice
notice small dents and ask they
came
sort these
eyes
we in our now floorboard
and ask where they they
along
walls paint
because the longer we
stare
we are sure they even
matter.
the corner of the room
empty except for the little
grooves in the floorboard, we
going in such a
that
off it, noticing just
inconsistent things are, how blurry
and arbitrary
differences seem between things and
people and
seems to dry.
under a
inside inside these things all
conversation stays
and nobody nobody really
about agains the or to while or
while behind the, a the
beforemaroon again with questions
how to to
stuck it
be working woodenbits
same and
the, with eyes under we
inside inside we stuck we are
slowly be working and fingers
and woodenbits
and stays the to care the
wayingsong or to we
a color stuck these but
the clock
those clunks and those clunks
same and nobody seems to
nobody nobody really and seems
to care care about
the a underthere
and with questions and
these things the clock seems
to be as usual be working as
to be working as clunks
usual clunks fingers the the.
and the conversation stays
seems care about the to care
a
next bounces and just happen
somehow and we can't
and we how
about things
trying to down as they were
thinking (not worrying and start
intention are
without sense
begin with,
word which
just
systems all around us
and our lives fracturing
breaking apart piece by piece as
we keep trying to
things back together with
words and
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
narrow, pressing against the
sides of our skulls, plurals
and singulars not having so
much significance to us now
when the
flickering so subtly. we pray but
don't know
to
what we
want. fading. fading.
they
they are, we from to okay, and
happens.
and sometimes
that
from without
sometimes things are
other
sometimes
sometimes trying are and
happens that
other without even trying
okay,
sometimes it
are other without even are
happens other without they
happens that
and sometimes one to the
other
the incense is in
incense is lungs
breathe and we breathe breathe
silence and quiet now. a
small voice humming and
laughing in the other room. a
crystal or some melting snow.
behinds toward
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 realize that this
is a beautiful thing. that
this is a beautiful thing.
how did we get here? the
questions which keep making their
way inside our mouths as if
we never could learn from
the last time we couldn't
answer and instead only become
more unhappy and began to
throw things at the walls with
some inexpressible
screaming and shouting with
face and bulging veins,
fists again and
the door not even
what's on the other side, too
caught up with the idea of the
door being there in the first
place
if causing the
flicker and the stove to begin to
smell like something is
burning so we all try to remember
what we had
kitchen last but we can't
remember, and even the attempts to
remember make us shout with fewer
words, make us scream with our
fingers and pound harder
harder on the door while the
there and the doorframe
appears to budge this time or
that time or this time again
and again and again
make us happy,
make this headache
which keeps distracting us
from everything going on
scratching pens
a quote
leave
when we go
though we
hazard and it
danger and
other people
below us,
we know and the people
care about what
them to. we wonder
should matter that something
happens
we care. and everything
so quiet.
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 creaking under
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
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
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
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 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
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.
doesn't, and it isn't
now we is in strange our
looks the wind ink and ink it
the paper
smudges
and
are so quiet, a tiny hiss
from the walls, distant
breathe with the
passing
and somehow we feel it in our
toes even though we can't
quite
chooses the pitches
against
another, why every story has some
sort of climax where
elements and trajectories
culminate into some bigger thing
as if we had been heading
were some kind
behind
where this
fall in this rotting pile
notice a pain
strange sense of pressure from
the
slowing down into a periodic
the ground but we can't make
out which side it landed on.
do we care? is it good to
care? would it matter if
knew? we are staring at the
coin and the coin is staring
marbles in a glass
the birds
melodies,
tinkling
right back, eyes
sunlight
batteries.
water.
asking between colorshades
and
were important
or
thismomentingly
casting shadows longer than
expected somehow while the light
reflects in its
walls and the nearby desk
surface, papers scattered from
other, some important
so much,
and blindly drawn
paintings and some printed out
from an old
that means,
meaning.
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 inkdots are
laughing: the numbers are
laughing too.
quietingly, the
softmurmurs not trying to say
anything in particular or
convince anyone of
prefering to let things just exist
the way
same when they need to stay
the same and change when
they need to change, or not
even need to stay the same or
need to change but maybe
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 like
dead trees, the sun pushing
the waves around a little
through the screen door, gnats
in the air just sort of
moving around.
with conversation
going little faster
repetition getting a aren't to
pretend we aren't pretend every
repetition little getting a little
, a little faster and with
fewer and with fewer mistakes
, little
we never seem to
the changes until they've
already happened. or at least
they
happening. we wonder why
the clouds evaporating and
the sun coming out, the air
getting so
single row of bricks painted a
different color.
through before how's and where
when whenever the
againagain the words
as we notice a little
cottonfluff drifting toward us. it
sticks to our
again
from. a million coins being
of possibility so
terrifyingly wide staring us in the
eye so intensely we have to
look away
little bug just flying
landing, and flying around
again. flying, landing, and
flying around again.
the
to
sound
thisthat
don't recognize. we
this sort
make
hear inside our chests
but
sounds..
actions
a
smile
more more like the sun
and the wind keeps little
bit, and we we us object the
air just sort of moves
around in the away floorboards
of bits of and makes us
wood is their wheels. end out
a without a, clinging to
glue, the same bucket,,
paints keeps doing our best
around on themselves and we
can't around us, paper and and
we can skin and we
repeating themselves or not and
that's perfectly that
never have made us more human
is blood is through our
pushing little smiling and in an
instant we see is, what every
person and object is doing, of
moves staring us without
turning away energy why
squirrels climb trees how cars. we
if turn without
after another the falling
into the and the keeps our
best pretending circles ink
going the help temperature
and how the
somehow feel it on our think we
don't know repeating
themselves or care and about would
laughing our through trees and
around and how the. in turning,
and bits us so trees of
quickly wheels in
we are breathing. and we
are still breathing. one
thought and another passing by
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 wait
and wonder if it would be
okay for us to ask now: "is
this beautiful?" we wonder
if nobody
around through the
sunlight
throughs and arounds
again the
circles of ink
we ask ourselves some
question we can't hear,
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
at the moment.
it's hard to speak
sometimes. we are frustrated with
ourselves for our
inconsistencies
allowing
they are and want to
taking action,
leftandrighting with the leftandright
were a different way
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
too many responses waiting
seem to go anywhere
positive,
hurt anybody or dissipate
had happened in the first
place and we begin to wonder
anything actually did or does
happen or if we had somehow just
thought it all up out of some kind
of
confusion aimed at nothing in
particular, cycles
forth but never quite the same
way,
somehow and adding
confusion and lack of any
place, the feeling that we are
nowhere and
are getting nowhere.
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 in the front passenger
seat of an old car and someone
we care a lot about asks,
who are you?
think for a
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
we aren't looking anyway
and we are both these
strange wooden
eyes which still say so much,
eyes without
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
about nothing in particular
and everything in
particular,
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
all, that hiding is okay
sometimes and being naked is okay
too, that sometimes things
lead to
sometimes they don't, and
sometimes things just happen and
they keep just happening and
they don't stop. they don't
stop and it seems like they
never will, so it starts
this and
smile a little but somehow
this feels impossible. we
get frustrated and start to
do
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
what they are afraid of.
forget that they are us, that
their grip is getting tighter
and that nothing is okay
them either. we remember
that their boxy head is
crying and we have been trying
that we are all the same
person born into different
bodies, and that this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing.
we don't recognize or
have don't we things we don't
when we good grip on shapes
shuffling feet a old librarian or
long time ago we had back came
or maybe sound is, or the
ventilation fans turning back on
back that remember
are hurtling toward,
wondering hurtling toward are
hurtling, minute
the thumpingly
whyhow
changing and growing, growing to
spray paints and
concrete, all these colors and
ideas permeating while we
watch with a smile. it all just
happens
trangles into other things,
shapes sort of making
themselves up behind each other
geometries and relationships
pushing buttons and dominoes
which always seem to fall in
the wrong direction. not
going the way we expected or
intended, but maybe that could be
into the thoughts again.
ideas and interactions.
story in
car, behind every note
note
time time
ceiling
arriving and to and ever just keep
arriving to be from these
possibilities some incomprehensible
tree,
up one we
remember we them, different
smiling. and
these social amplifying
because one first these group
different struggle behind
different, a different behind
every note more
time time the
ceiling. emails arriving be all
fanning
possibilities fanning out into
branching out incomprehensible
into into options after up
just
instincts but we