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 995535.
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 995535
it is 2026. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
marbles in
the
melodies,
tinkling or rubbing cardboard.
the
right back, eyes glimmering
so
batteries.
and
were
or something or something
or anothersong
casting shadows longer
reflects in its own color onto the
surface,
months before piled over each
so much,
and blindly drawn
paintings
from an old
laser jet
that means,
systems all around
breaking apart piece by piece
we keep
things back together with
words and theories and poems
and cathedrals
architectures
in concrete, we begin to
feel jittery as we realize
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 us now
when the lights are
flickering so
don't know who we are praying
what we want, what we should
want. fading. fading.
we ask ourselves some
question we can't hear, muffled
because our heads are
underwater, this cold
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
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.
a
we close our floating feel
this stinging sensation
hands sensation we notice
someone did it
outside
foreheads
floorboard and ask groove
lot
desk
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
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.
the corner of the
empty except for the little
grooves in the floorboard, we
smile. the moments going and
going in such a beautiful way
that we can't take our eyes
off it, noticing just how
differences seem between things and
people and ideas, how musical a
painting can sound
we suspect that things
just and
like numbers things might
sound nobody is
start thinking )
thinking about what might be
why we might be for
what for breakfast
another when
intention are of another we
intention to begin
scratchy
next
through our ear
with
where
longer and sun a
and
the
sniffling
making us
this
while
while sun
it's hard to speak
sometimes. we are frustrated with
ourselves for
inconsistencies
they are and
always taking action and never
taking action,
once again wishing things
were a different way
the coin had landed on the
other face; we can't figure
out
quite sure if that question
leads anywhere
the energy to say anything,
too many responses waiting
behind each option which never
positive, anywhere that doesn't
hurt anybody or dissipate
into the grass as
had
place and we begin to
anything actually did or does
happen or if
thought it all up out of some kind
of desperation and
confusion aimed at nothing in
particular, cycles
forth but never
way, always
somehow and adding
confusion and lack of any sense of
place, the feeling
are getting nowhere.
tangling wires into
these bizarre shapes, rugs
with strange colors and
melodies waitingly, taking deep
breaths before the speech where
we finally
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 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 down
or is that a sign
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 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 accidentally
imagine
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
who are you?
think for a minute, and then
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 are both these
strange wooden boxes attached
to bodies,
eyes which still say so much,
eyes without laughinglines
which always find new things
to smile about
behind our ears, the way this
piece of
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 everything and
to feel nothing, or at
least something
getting tighter and we remember
how okay
beautiful it is and how funny it is
that
be the same thing after
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
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
this feels impossible. we
get frustrated and start to
do things we don't want to
do, blaming
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
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
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.
beautiful thing.
getting every do our
repetition listening our best
going on with fewer going
while the on outside becoming
we conversation heated
while
heated while listening
pretend every do every
repetition faster, little more a
little going on the becoming
with conversation faster a
aren't heated while mistakes
while
repetition
fewer mistakes while we
conversation going on outside
becoming heated while we going on
outside while we do
faster fewer mistakes. the
faster on fewer mistakes
conversation
going on outside becoming
heated while outside becoming
we aren't listening.
every listening repetition
getting every repetition
getting a we aren't listening
while we do to pretend we
aren't getting a little,
with fewer accurate, a
little getting a little, a
accurate a little more
every repetition getting,
repetition getting, faster and
with accurate, repetition
getting a little repetition
faster and little faster and
getting, listening. a little
with becoming mistakes on
outside mistakes. the fewer
mistakes and little more
accurate and mistakes with
little faster and with fewer
faster on outside going on
outside becoming heated on
outside becoming
accurate little, a conversation
. outside becoming
heated while we do
faster and with. the
conversation
becoming heated fewer mistakes
the do on we going the
going
all ideas permeating
just happens
just of squares and trangles
into outlines of squares and
trangles trangles into shapes
and direction. not going
the way fall in we expected
or that could be we. not
going the way we that could
goals again. ideas and
thoughts again. ideas and
interactions. spray all ideas watch
with a smile colors and ideas
permeating while we smile.
trangles into all just happens
other of making each and
relationships pushing buttons and
seem to fall
always buttons
wrong direction intended
that could be we not we
expected point into ideas and
interactions. spray paints and
concrete, all spray paints while
a smile. and trangles
into other things, other
geometries and relationships
dominoes which which not going,
but maybe into the the ideas
and and concrete, all a
these smile. it all into other
things things other
geometries and dominoes which
always seem to way way way we,
but expected point and
paints and and concrete, all
with a a smile. and ideas with
a smile while we
more like on just wind
keeps bit we are everything
around us for person and the
around us in being
of quickly and how cars. we
if in the end it will to joke
without a last bricks opinions,
fists and paints keeps our
pretending not to
other can't help but notice
all around us
allowing even could
away could even mean sense to
happen
happen
much
much and our shoelaces on or
off or tangled somewhere
near spoiled food being that
having no thoughts and that
this a beautiful thing
that's completely that's
completely okay that's and a
beautiful watch the pollen drift
watch pollen drift single
the same,
we keep asking
questions like “will this make me
happy?” when instead it might be
more interesting to ask
it would sound like
leaves on every tree were poems
written on little sheets of
paper
loud all at the same time and
then the wind began to blow
and the
the air
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 begin to
laugh. we ask ourselves
another question we can't hear
because of all the wind and
poems, and that's just fine
realize we didn't want to know
the answers anyway when
there are so many confusing
and beautiful things all
around us anyway. we just keep
laughing and grabbing poems out
of the air, sometimes
othertimes using them as napkins.
the wind, the wind is
laughing too.
and wonder if
okay
this
if
watch the
around through the
take another breath with
throughs and arounds
behindingly the now nowing
again the time continues and
stops
circles of ink
question and don't know
we and we begin cry., and
laugh, and laugh, and these
questions are minute or first
comes to our is ears which we to
how we are bad handwriting.
how we we we and we wonder
what might, anything if
actually
we wonder what
make this headache go away
from everything
scratching pens and
a
leave
when we go to
though we know it's a
hazard and
danger and the lives of
other people living
below us, and all
care about what happens
even though
should matter that something
happens to
so
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
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
happening.
even speaking about what's
going on or what's not going on
but instead just
mentioning about whatever is on
their mind at that moment,
letting it out and letting it go,
the sound waves not
disappearing
thousand surfaces and every
blade of grass, split and
muffled and distorted and
echoed until they sound like
dead
the waves around a little
through the screen door, gnats
in the air just sort of
moving around.
happens which
behind
smudges
a word
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.
that even trying.
sometimes,, and
without
one
from even
not not. and
sometimes
sometimes they are, it
trying, and
trying things are, sometimes
they that we go
sometimes they, and sometimes to
without
things happens that the the,
and and
happens that we go.
that we go
without even
it it
that it
not okay okay,
sometimes
sometimes
from not okay and sometimes
go from
sometimes
sometimes
without not
happens that
even trying
sometimes
happens that to things are are
are
and sometimes not that we
things
even things not
they are other
other even trying
sometimes
are not okay okay they not
okay sometimes it happens
sometimes it other
other without even they and
sometimes it other
are
sometimes things sometimes one
other
trying. even are are we the
without
things
happens
and sometimes they
because the longer we
stare at
we are sure they even
matter.
and all
are so quiet,
from the
clanging of
breathe with the sunlight,
passing clouds causing
little
and somehow
toes even though we can't
quite tell why the wind
chooses the pitches it sings
against the window, why
harmony should point to
another, why every story has some
sort of climax where
elements and trajectories
culminate into some
there all along as
were some
where this
fall
from
strange sense of pressure from
the bottom
now
slowing down into a periodic
banging; we notice a
the
out which side it landed
do we care?
knew? we
coin and the coin is staring
funny we laughing!
isn't but smile when the the we
help but smile when starts
coming of these colors whose
names names lines lines and
lines and so many lines. stick
of
still of the of incense is
becoming becoming we we breathe
we breathe. we we forget to
it forget to questions. we
can't back starts back starts
shades so many incense is still
glowing and
becoming incense is glowing
somehow becoming our
breathe we forget to questions
questions. laughing questions.
laughing we forget and we we we
breathe and our our lungs
breathe and we breathe
questions
to care about the
eyelids beforemaroon
questions and
moving
usual working as
nobody same
wayingsong agains wayingsong the
eyes
stuck we these things
but
clock usual those woodenbits
counterpoint really same nobody same
or the, behind the and
underthere and ideas to see
when we
so
we a counterpoint really
seems to care about the wind
wind the wayingsong a a a the
eyelids and
inside it so slowly but the
clock seems suggest
counterpoint. and counterpoint.
and
wind.
underthere eyes
questions and ideas
we
inside it
stays the really care about
agains beforemaroon, with
questions and under a see under a
color when
moving
usual fingers
counterpoint..
really seems nobody nobody to
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
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
way inside
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 anger
screaming
face and bulging veins,
fists again and again against
the door not even caring
what's on the other
caught up with
door being there in the
place
if causing the lights to
flicker and the stove to begin to
smell like
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 us shout with fewer
words, make us scream with our
fingers and pound harder and
harder on the door while the
wood is splintering here and
there and the doorframe
appears to budge this time or
that time or this time again
and again and again
the changes until they've
already happened.
they are well into
the clouds evaporating and
the
single row of bricks painted a
different color. who the behinds
through before how's and where
when whenever
as we notice a little
cottonfluff drifting toward
sticks to our ink, and
again where meaning comes
from. a million coins being
thrown every instant,
of possibility so
terrifyingly wide staring us in the
eye so intensely we have
look away
little bug just flying around,
landing, and flying around
flying around again.
emails just keep emails
just keep the sky seeming
none none people people
possibilities fanning out tree, after
after options impossible
incomprehensible tree some
incomprehensible impossible to with the
first and for go for we left
circumstances calling for different
all these. all these we
don't don't remember calling
for we left them. all these
we go looking where we
different circumstances calling
different
because one first gestures
of joke didn't even it was
didn't even
were so many
all
this jam,
piano struggle behind
there. but there
sky seeming. emails just
and ceiling arriving
another ceiling. emails just
arriving
real people,
into entire stories,
possibilities
saw any
for our left them. these
different circumstances calling
different and smiling. we are
smiling of us group of people??
these who don't know who don't
thought the joke didn't even
they half of were so all it
because funny
at once there funny
because things things going on
story in every single
different note in
different different different
but time..
and
. the
sound.. sound. damp. the
smell sticks from we a
remember why for
this for, it, does. once, it
does smell of damp once,
smell it does. the smell of
outside of damp
slowmoving sound of damp sticks
from outside notice so pink
maybe we
remember why now
. the from