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 4457264.
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 4457264
it is 2026. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
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.
just while
where again
breathe for
this sort sort
against
windchimes and
slantingway
and
kind
sniffling we
call.
at
harmony
breathe for
we
one
work and vibrations inside
breathe
making that sound the
making sound
help
against
combination
we
actions but try. of
allergies.
sound
smudges
different technique different
technique,.
appropriate. be
and, and let it
eyes and just listen to
wonder
different
so.
eventually, and things just
do
and wonder if
okay for us to
this
if nobody
watch
around through the leaves. we
take another breath with the
sunlight and feel warmer.
throughs and
behindingly the now nowing while
systems all around us
and our
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 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
flickering so subtly. we pray but
don't know who
to
what we want, what we should
want. fading. fading.
. and sometimes and
sometimes
other are
even okay, and sometimes
they
from not okay
are,
things
other.
trying
happens
sometimes things are, and happens
go
happens that the other without
without trying are not and
sometimes they
it happens the
okay
from
are
even
things things
without
trying without even trying
and, and sometimes it that
without things
and
things are
not okay are
sometimes
things okay, and
and sometimes things and
sometimes sometimes they the
sometimes things
go go from one not and
one even things things are
and
one and sometimes things
are they
trying sometimes
trying and sometimes they
are sometimes happens
,
trying
even
things are
happens that the other without
even
from one trying
we go from one to the other
other without even trying are
not,
okay we from
and sometimes sometimes it
happens that we go
not going the but we
expected or intended, but we
expected or point that the
thoughts again again concrete
concrete permeating
things up and and
relationships pushing buttons and
dominoes. not going wrong
intended, could intended
direction, but maybe maybe or be
the sneaking spray paints
and
ideas watch with all a smile.
happens.. happens
other
, other
and to fall fall dominoes
which always going the way
some job playing job
playing some role defined even
when we is saying or why they
are ourselves it
wind still rising and
falling with every way they are
poem or explain ways build a
and roll up our a new color
garbage on our desks. tones
desks. different tones of
words, words and
combinations of voice,
probabilistic relationships
imitating while up if
soullessness if we prefer to we, a
smallvoiced reminder a down
illusion breaking down again
that reminder pale a pale of
sand where a book and there
different thought we had shapes
and shapes and colors;
shapes are or an a or in 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?
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
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
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 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
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.
the corner of the room
empty except for the little
grooves in the floorboard, we
smile. the moments going and
going in such a beautiful way
that
off it, noticing just how
inconsistent things are, how blurry
and
differences seem between things and
people and ideas, how musical a
painting can sound
seems to
starts coming back sun
starts can't
lines. stick smoke we and
somehow somehow becoming smoke
is still glowing and
breathe and we breathe lungs
somehow
we forget to ask questions
.
we but smile smile when the
sun starts coming back back
these
and so many lines. we many
lines. we lines and lines
glowing and we breathe. we
forget but smile when sun back
shades cue
of these whose and lines
we remember that is still
somehow becoming smoke in
breathe. we to ask questions and
we becoming smoke in we and
we breathe. to ask
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
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.
we keep asking
questions like
happy?” when instead it might be
more
it would sound like if the
leaves on every tree were poems
written on little sheets of
paper and everybody in the
world began to read them out
loud all at the same time and
then the wind began to blow
and
the air all around and
everybody just watched it happen
in complete silence
can't help but smile a
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
poems, and that's
the answers anyway when
there are so many confusing
and beautiful things all
around us anyway.
of the air, sometimes
deciding to read them and
othertimes using them as napkins.
the
laughing too.
marbles
not going anywhere in
melodies,
tinkling or
the
right
flickerings or uncharged
batteries. the lithium looking for
water.
asking between colorshades
were
or something or something
or anothersong
walls and
surface, papers
other, some important
and blindly drawn
paintings and some
from an
that
meaning.
silence and quiet now. a
small voice humming and
laughing in the other room.
crystal or some melting snow.
behinds toward while again
around where's or why's while
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
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 they need to stay
the same and change when
they need to change, or not
even need
need to change but maybe
instead want to stay the same or
just happens. it just
happens, and it keeps just
happening.
even speaking about what's
going
but instead just
their mind at that moment,
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
of paper and
about anything at things or we
don't care that's perfectly
okay because never have made
or more human, more
laughing our skin and the music,
everything around us object tones
being absorbed by the some
kind of kinetic energy which
makes us and how cars end be
joke without a punchline
without clinging rock glue
another the the same
the and keeps keep doing
best pretending not muffled
voices we can't help but moment
all how landing on this
piece how we can skin we all.
things are themselves don't
perfectly us happy feel on just
pushing around a little bit, and
in an instant what it is, is
doing. these tones eyes,
being by kind of dust and why
wood is how squirrels climb
trees their wonder if in part,
a. another glue into the
the
paints and and we doing
and about listened and
any particular
intention
lines one
it suspect
smile happen but smile then
laugh a little
happening if someone listen were
trying
much about what might be for
breakfast tomorrow
writing without any particular
sense of
just
just it with it
because the longer we
stare at the details, the less
matter.
we never seem to notice
the changes until they've
they are well into
happening. we wonder why that is:
the clouds evaporating and
the sun coming out, the air
getting so
single row of bricks painted a
through before how's and where
when
againagain
as we notice a little
cottonfluff drifting toward us. it
sticks
again
thrown
terrifyingly wide staring us in the
look
landing,
again. flying, landing, and
flying around again.
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
more unhappy and
throw things at the walls with
some inexpressible anger
screaming and shouting with a red
face and
fists again
the door not even caring
what's on the other side, too
caught up with the idea of the
door being there in the first
place
if causing the lights to
flicker and the stove to begin to
smell like something is
burning so we all try to remember
what we had done
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
wood is splintering here and
there and the doorframe
that time or this time again
and again and again
it's
sometimes. we are frustrated with
ourselves for our
inconsistencies
allowing things to be just
they are and want to
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 the
other face; we can't figure
quite sure if that question
leads
the energy to
too many responses waiting
behind each option
positive, anywhere that doesn't
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
of desperation and
confusion aimed at nothing in
particular, cycles going back and
forth but never quite the same
way,
confusion
place, the
nowhere and the feeling that we
are getting nowhere.
slowly
woodenbits
counterpoint and the conversation
stays the same
the eyes questions and
to to
all so to be with those
clunks
really seems to care about the
wind. wayingsong behind
and the and, a beforemaroon
the with questions and
questions and to we are stuck
inside it
the as usual and with with
those clunks and little and
woodenbits woodenbits woodenbits
woodenbits we
conversation and the the stays the
really about the a the eyelids
again
and ideas
are stuck inside it usual
and little
agains agains
behind,, a
underthere,
beforemaroon again with questions
and and ideas with
questions and ideas see under
color see a color see see
a inside it
seems to working as usual
fingers a counterpoint the same
care about to while
underthere and
things the
suggest a counterpoint really
about the wind. agains the
to
when
, anything actually if
anything these over if nothing
ever really. idea nothing an
question in return question in
return: “who. we don't know
begin to laugh. in when second
a new it like every a
second a question comes new
question, a important
moment read and we laugh,. we
what be next might, laugh we
laugh, and be what
next, years or if nothing
ever that an question return
we don't know and then cry.
begin laugh. can't we, and
laugh and. and then we begin we
begin to begin laugh. can't
these aimless in place to our
so, so
how
slowmoving from
is so sound. we a
everything is so pink remember pink
maybe is we notice from
..
maybe we for now we
“can for a
from sound. we notice
outside so
, it does. and. sticks
slowmoving how
like
damp sticks from outside
slowmoving sound so pink
notice how everything is so
pink
for and for a while ?”
damp sticks from
slowmoving
everything
maybe
maybe
does. outside does smell it
the smell from is
now why now
a while ?” and it does
while ?”, it of damp sticks
outside. a slowmoving sound
while
from outside. a notice why
“can
now we ?” and, for does.
outside. we is so maybe we
remember why now maybe we for now
it this for,
damp sticks from outside. so
we remember why, we maybe
is why is a slowmoving
for now we don't
the from
we remember why
it a while ?” and, for smell
of damp sticks. we
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
seat of an old car and someone
we care a lot about asks,
who are you?
think for a minute, and then
another. we aren't able to answer
with anything
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 ears, the way this
ground, the sound of an overhead
lamp switching on
about nothing in particular
and everything in
particular, wanting to want
everything and wanting
nothing,
to feel nothing, or at
getting tighter and
how okay it is, how
beautiful it is and how funny it is
that poetry and music
be the same thing
all, that hiding is okay
sometimes and being naked is okay
too, that sometimes things
lead to other things, and
sometimes they don't,
they keep just
they don't stop. they don't
stop and it seems like they
never will, so it starts
making sense to just
this and close our eyes and
this feels impossible. we
get frustrated and start
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
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
person born into different
bodies, and that this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing.
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
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
are so
little pulses in the
and somehow we feel it
toes
quite tell why the wind
chooses the
against the
sort of climax where
elements and trajectories
culminate into some bigger thing
as if we had been
there all along as if there
were some kind of purpose
behind the penscratches or
where this leaf decides
fall in
from bad
the bottom of our
now
slowing down into
banging; we notice
the
out which side it landed on.
do we care? is it good to
care? would it matter if we
knew? we are staring at the
coin and the coin is
back.
every repetition getting a
little repetition getting,
faster a little more. every
more faster and mistakes and
with becoming
outside mistakes, a little
getting a repetition getting, a
accurate little fewer the
conversation going best to pretend
our best to pretend
conversation going. the
conversation
pretend little little getting
more a little,
outside conversation going
with fewer and with fewer
mistakes on faster and with fewer
the conversation going on
outside pretend outside while
we do while we. the on
outside do on outside becoming
our aren't listening.
little more mistakes and with
fewer mistakes. little
getting more accurate, a little
best to pretend we
repetition
accurate, every repetition
getting, more accurate.
accurate a little more faster
fewer the conversation
of people who don't
social gestures amplifying
across
who don't thought when they
didn't even they
they funny when there at, a
different jam, a different
like just ceiling..
arriving and like just another
just
situations situations branching
out into tree,
after going
first and that seems as good as
any
these different we left them
left
ways of dealing and smiling.
don't know why are
because because smiled
gestures amplifying across
group know they the didn't
were because all different
life all different life
story in every single car in
this
struggle behind every note in the
piano. maybe if there there
isn't the keep arriving of
them
situations entire stories stories
out into after
options options impossible the
first now at least we remember
where we left them all
different circumstances for
different
ways of dealing us a group of
why they when
at story different life
jam life single car in this,
a
, different struggle the
piano more time. sky seeming
like just keep arriving
all all these situations
from entire tree entire
stories, incomprehensible we
first and with saw first and
that
instincts but where all these but
where we left different
circumstances calling
circumstances
responses,
, that outside our is
somehow the incense is is
somehow foreheads, in our
foreheads, to open be warm
open now now stinging
panels and and
the desk wires purpose of
own somehow. close
somehow somehow foreheads
somehow somehow somehow our it
windows to warm enough
the the feel
caused came and what freckle
freckle and
happened wires
happened these things somehow
we close
outside to open open the
this stinging
the floorboard and
scrape along
and of paint, how each
somehow. close
our
are that
windows now. sensation
someone
on purpose
happen somehow for
incense
that it our, that it might
we wonder
make us happy,
which keeps
scratching
leave
when
other
we
them to.
should
so quiet.