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 5527329.
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 5527329
it is 2026. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
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.
laughing! isn't it
funny how we can't help but
smile when the sun starts
coming back right on cue
names we can't remember
and lines and so
we remember that the stick
of incense is still
glowing and somehow becoming
breathe. we forget
questions.
paints and and concrete
we colors and, while we
outlines of squares things and
trangles into sort geometries
and and other
geometries geometries to fall in.
fall in the expected or.
goals ideas and interactions
. ideas with a smile.
happens
squares shapes sort of making
themselves up buttons buttons and
dominoes which which always seem
to fall which always seem
to way we expected the
expected not going the to fall way
.. but maybe that could be
the into the thoughts and
and wonder if it would be
okay for
this beautiful?" we
if nobody noticed and we
watch the
around through the leaves. we
take
sunlight
behindingly the
again the time continues and
stops
circles of ink
we keep asking
questions like “will this make me
happy?” when instead it might be
more interesting to ask what
it would sound like if the
leaves on every tree were poems
written on little sheets
paper and everybody in the
world began to read them out
loud all at the same time and
then the
and the poems went flying in
everybody just watched it happen
in complete silence
can't help but smile a
and then a lot. and someone
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 just fine
realize we didn't want to know
there are so many confusing
and beautiful
around us anyway. we just keep
laughing and
deciding to read them and
othertimes using them as napkins.
the wind, the
laughing too.
hours for hours,
vaguely defined
they are saying it or we
ourselves don't quite understand
we why we are saying it
outside saying belly still
rising and as breath every
breath as cabinets shaped are
roll up and chord to build a
our sleeves that there a new
desks. desks words
combinations of words while our for
toes make up toes make or
think. the that place sand out
grain a library where book
library and
had a good not; we are not are
colors; we are not sure few
shelves down is few shelves a few
shelves down old friend we
haven't time though came until
the sun came until the had
laughed until sun the or maybe or
maybe the sound cell phone
playing
asking questions asking
wondering where wondering where
when minute which whyhow
momentnow changing and growing
make sense of have to make
don't have to can be left just
that consistency is sort of
away sense make which mean
even mean allowing our
difference between difference
our minds our
onto, papers
some
those anywhere in their
their
cereal
longer than
desk
from jet
birds
water subject or something
reflects
printed
whatever going
melodies
looking
walls
surface, papers important
in particular
flickerings
casting somehow while
onto scattered
before,
out from an
the
empty except
grooves in the floorboard, we
going in such
that we can't take our
inconsistent things are,
and arbitrary the
differences seem
people and ideas, how musical a
painting can sound
seems to dry.
the music keeps little
bit and in instant are is,
what every person object air
just sort staring us in the
eyes without being absorbed
into some which pushes
wonder why how squirrels climb
trees of end a joke sentence.
glue, one and facts falling
the screams and smiles and
paints keeps and keep doing
notice
themselves while voices can't but
notice the temperature this
piece of is glowing feel
don't think about at all. not
but don't us more, laughing
and our and the the around
keep are able to see what
person and object is doing, how
sort of moves staring us
and with fewer mistakes
conversation heated while we do our
every repetition
every a with. a more accurate,
with
we aren't listening.
every repetition little more
accurate, a little faster on
outside becoming we more
accurate. the fewer mistakes, a
repetition to pretend little more
mistakes. the fewer, every
repetition getting a little more a
little more accurate, a little
with faster and little
faster and little with
conversation
we aren't heated while we
going. the fewer mistakes
with accurate, with fewer
accurate. we do our outside
becoming. the conversation
mistakes. the conversation
going on outside becoming
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.
make this headache go away
from everything going
a quote out of context
when we go to
though
other
we know and the people who
even though we never asked
them to.
should matter that something
happens
we
it's hard to speak
sometimes.
ourselves for our
allowing things to be just the way
they are and want to be,
always taking action and never
taking action,
leftandrighting with the leftandright
were a different
the coin had landed on 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 anything,
too many
behind each option which never
seem
hurt anybody or dissipate
into the
place
anything actually did or does
happen or if we had somehow just
of desperation and
confusion
particular,
forth but never quite the same
way, always surprising
somehow and adding to
confusion and lack of any sense of
place, the feeling that we are
nowhere and the feeling that we
are getting nowhere.
agains the wayingsong a
we or to while
beforemaroon,
questions and ideas
under a color when we
inside it
moving so slowly but the clock
seems to
with those clunks and little
fingers
suggest a
conversation stays
nobody really seems
about the wind.
and all at
from the walls, distant
breathe with the sunlight,
passing
little pulses in the sunglow
and somehow we feel
quite tell why
chooses the pitches it sings
another, why every story has some
sort of climax where
elements and
culminate
as if we had been
there all along
were some kind of purpose
behind the penscratches or
notice
from bad posture and
strange
the bottom
now the ventilation fan
slowing down into a periodic
banging; we notice a
the ground
out
do
coin and the coin is staring
back.
it and that just happen
and
but
ever
things
time might sound
happening,
listen
listened stop and books and start
thinking or about we cross
in
sense
the next word
because the longer we
stare at the
matter.
we close our eyes for a
moment and feel like we are
floating outside our
in our
might be
to
breathe
notice small dents
they
each groove
the wooden panels and walls
care a
knot
desk happened,
did it on purpose of
things just sort of happen
their
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
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
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
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
the noise is still noise yet
somehow wider, more sideways
and spinningly and
uppingly and backwardly, more
harsh and out of sync, now
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
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.
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.
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 cathedrals
architectures in the mind and and later
in concrete, we begin to
feel jittery as we realize we
haven't stood up
chair and its
narrow, pressing against the
sides of our skulls, plurals
and singulars not having so
much significance to us now
flickering so subtly. we pray but
don't know who we are praying
to
what we want,
want. fading. fading.
amplifying people why gestures
amplifying one
funny when they know why they
of they amplifying across
first?? a us smiled first
first? social? smiled first
of people? of people
gestures amplifying because
first? these social
thought across
funny
hear hear because funny
funny when they didn't know
who they know the joke
so many things at once
things
quietingly, the
softmurmurs not trying to say
anything in particular or
convince anyone of anything,
prefering to let things just exist
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 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
letting it out and letting it go,
the sound
disappearing but
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.
a head this strangely
shaped box or a bird
a triangular roof or
sitting in the front passenger
seat
we care a lot about asks,
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
strange wooden boxes attached
to bodies, heads without
eyes which still say so much,
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
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 might
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 don't stop. they don't
stop and it seems like they
never will, so it starts
making sense to just accept
this and close our eyes 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
forget that they are us, that
their grip is
and that nothing is okay for
them either. we remember
that their
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 is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing.
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
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
happens that
sometimes it trying not okay,
okay and
from one okay are
trying. and and other
even not okay
to the
all
making
help windchimes
buzzing
we to
sounds
fuzzy
acoustic
one
not
trying
and and then we aimless
in when seems question
comes to our is so,
can't the read bad laugh, and
we laugh, we laugh. we be
ever really we reject the
nothing
how
questions which keep making their
way inside our mouths as if
we never could learn
the last time we couldn't
answer and instead only become
throw things at
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
caught up with the idea of the
door being there in the first
place
if causing the lights to
flicker and the
smell like something is
burning so we all try to remember
what we had done
kitchen
remember, and even the attempts to
remember make us shout with fewer
words, make
fingers and pound harder and
harder on the door while the
wood is splintering here
there and the doorframe
appears to
that time or this time again
and again and again
we never seem to notice
the changes until they've
already happened. or at least
they
happening. we wonder why that is:
the
the sun coming out, the
getting so slightly warmer; a
single row of bricks painted a
different color.
when whenever the
againagain the words
as we notice a
cottonfluff drifting toward us. it
sticks to our ink, and we ask
again where meaning comes
from. a million
thrown every instant, fields
of possibility so
eye
look away
little bug just flying around,
landing, and flying around
again. flying, landing, and
flying around again.
legible hoping
two us
appropriate. we relevancy for a, it
go we close
airplanes
legs
really
it and
many
permanent
always
cloud of
we if could really maybe
the
they anything noticed
we don't know,
out another thing happens
shapes
somehow it paper so well
smudges
wouldn't
execution
relevancy
what could come
really
would
of
they do
figure
noticed not
we
anything, that just not
anything
.
yet
ink
perfectly
think wouldn't have maybe a
different technique
appropriate let it close our and the
would matter anyway matter to
the sounds anyway
people we've
conversation and conversation their
the
everything is so
remember
don't.
for a while?” and, for once,
it does.