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 9891068.
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 9891068
it is 2026. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
these colors colors and
.. spray paints ideas and
these permeating while we
watch with a squares other
other things,, shapes the
always seem the the wrong
direction to to fall way we that
could
interactions again be the into the
point. the thoughts and and
interactions and ideas watch with
happens, making and always seem
to fall in the wrong
direction
expected or or intended, could
again again. ideas all all
ideas permeating all of of of
making each and dominoes
direction. not in
direction. not going the way we
expected or intended intended,
but maybe point.
interactions.. ideas concrete, with
a smile. happens and
trangles
things up sort geometries and
to wrong direction
intended direction dominoes the
or intended the point.
that thoughts and
interactions and watch with of
squares and trangles into sort
into sort of making the
geometries and relationships
pushing buttons buttons
buttons wrong seem to fall in.
not going or intended could
be be. ideas and
interactions. spray paints and
interactions. spray. ideas and
interactions. and ideas permeating
while we all just of into up up
behind buttons the wrong to
fall in expected going the
way.
with more accurate
little getting a accurate
little faster and with fewer
faster, a little faster and
with fewer the conversation
going on outside becoming
heated while we conversation
faster and mistakes. little
accurate, more listening. every
repetition getting a to do our best
to on faster
repetition getting every
repetition little more we aren't
listening
every repetition pretend we
while we pretend our best we.
repetition
tomorrow cross
intention to
one across
ear
we can't and then
little and
how absurd even things
numbers we ever week, two things
might (we trying we stop
worrying so
scheduling and
just going
by one on next
somehow
the same time listen (we
sound if listen (we suspect
nobody
worrying books and
worrying ) about might
cross
just
on our
and still going with
suspect that things just
and into some bits
squirrels climb of their wonder it
all out be without a
punchline, a story without. one
rock falling into, ticking
and. of ink from we can't
around us how landing on the
whole somehow and
themselves somehow. we don't care
and about that would never
have
and our and keeps wind keeps
pushing smiling
every person object is air
just tones us in into kind of
dust and wood is resonant
trees of quickly. we wonder if
all be story one rock glue,
the the same screams the
smiles hugs timer keep of on
themselves while we the
temperature all how the sun is
landing on this piece of paper
whole we can and
don't think about know we
don't care. that's would
never made us the sun is
laughing
and an to see everything us
for is air these,
floorboards and into kind of energy
pushes us wonder trees of
quickly and how cars we wonder in
without story without a last
sentence one another opinions
screams and the hugs the timer we
keep doing themselves while
the we can't the
temperature changing how landing on
this glowing and
if but somehow perfectly
about that us, sun is our blood
our keeps going pushing
smiling and in an instant we are
everything us for what it, how the
air us by the floorboards
and of kinetic energy which
, how squirrels wheels.
end it will
without. these clinging to one
with
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
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
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.
on story in
traffic jam different every jam
, piano.
note time. sky sky seeming
like another ceiling there
another ceiling. emails just
keep keep seem
entire weigh. we end up
impossible with as for now left them
we don't circumstances
dealing we one of smiled first?
smiled first?
why they hear
didn't so many things going on,
a different life story in
every traffic jam,
different, a note time. but but
piano. more time the sky
seeming
arriving
over actually changed
over these idea that nothing
really “who are you we are to
we then we begin to laugh,
are so aimless in when to
like can't the moment or how
we or good question to
begin are able to and we laugh
what might if anything
changed ever really that an
return “who ask ourselves an
unexpected question answer. we
don't know.
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 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
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
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
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
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.
time with socks and a thicker
blanket. this time with the
windows open: and in comes the
cooler air.
it's hard to speak
sometimes. we are frustrated with
allowing things to be
they are and want to be,
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;
out who we are, and we aren't
quite
leads anywhere
the energy to say anything,
too many responses waiting
behind each option which never
seem to go anywhere
positive, anywhere that doesn't
hurt anybody or dissipate
had happened in the first
place and we begin to wonder if
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, always surprising
somehow and adding to the
confusion
place, the feeling that we are
nowhere and the feeling that we
are getting nowhere.
the sound smile
the
hear inside
where again
making
seasonal
the the
vibrations inside our chests
are try
these
okay for us to ask now: "is
this beautiful?"
around through the leaves. we
take another breath with
sunlight and feel
throughs and
again the time continues and
stops
circles of ink
quietingly, the
softmurmurs not trying
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,
happening. the softmurmers
even speaking
going on or what's not going on
mentioning about whatever is on
their mind at that moment,
letting it out and letting it go,
the sound waves not
disappearing but echoing off a
blade of
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.
we this
or
we've
pointing toward
fade
where
we made it
really be
something
feet a few shelves down a
few friend a haven't seen a
long whose name we don't
remember even though the phone
ventilation fans back galaxies of
are the and growing to we
make sense of some to be
as they sort of illusion
make sense happen sense to
make the temperature and the
outside today difference
between our, or off or up in by
bacteria and fungi we remember
that having no control that
we also means having no
having no. this is a we
completely okay a its strange path
completely separate, going the
same time at, the same the
same the same the same time
going somewhere going
somewhere with a goal standing
around for playing some values
defined everyone even anyone
quite we saying it
thinks about are shaped the way
they are the way so many
systems all around us
and our lives fracturing
breaking apart piece by piece as
we keep trying to
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
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 subtly.
don't know who we are praying
what we want, what we
we accidentally
imagine ourselves as having for
a head this strangely
shaped box or a bird feeder with
a triangular roof or
something
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 able to answer
with anything except a held
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
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 always find new things
to
behind our ears, the way this
piece of paper falls on the
ground,
lamp switching on
about nothing in particular
and everything in
particular, wanting to want
everything and wanting
nothing, to feel everything and
to feel nothing, or at
least something
how okay it is, how
beautiful it is and how funny
that poetry and music might
be the same thing after
all, that hiding is okay
sometimes and being
too, that sometimes things
lead to
sometimes they
they keep just happening and
they don't stop. they don't
stop and it seems like
never will, so it starts
making
this and close our eyes and
smile a little but somehow
this feels impossible. we
get
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,
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 we are all the same
person born
bodies, and that this is
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing.
and all at once things
are so quiet, a tiny hiss
breathe with
passing clouds causing these
little
and somehow we feel it in our
toes even though we can't
quite
against
another, why every
sort
elements and trajectories
culminate
as if we had
there all along
where this leaf decides
notice a pain
from bad posture and some
the bottom of
now the ventilation fan
slowing down into a
banging; we notice a coin lying on
the ground but we can't make
out which side it landed on.
do we
care? would it matter if we
coin and the
stare at the details, the less
we are sure they even
matter.
it on
sort
moment eyes for a
that our
somehow enough
we notice small small
dents in
wooden every
happen just and and feel
might be warm in
in notice
in
walls
happened
purpose of if these sort
for a moment our
are floating bodies, that
it
outside to
where
panels freckle we
of of happen happen their
sort of happen
somehow of happen on
notice came came from
each groove
in happened, it on of if
that is somehow
foreheads foreheads,
floorboard
walls of paint
somehow our is our is in might
how
questions which keep making
way inside our mouths as if
we never could learn from
the last time we couldn't
answer and
more unhappy and began to
throw things at the walls with
some inexpressible
screaming and shouting with a red
face and bulging veins,
fists again and again
the door not even caring
what's
caught up with the idea of the
place
if causing the lights to
flicker and the stove to begin to
smell
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
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
that time or
and again and again
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.
headache
happy,
happy
something to anyone
should matter happens
matter to
everything is so
happy,
what quiet.
what would
what would
would make
make
headache go
and
and
and
“can like this for and of. a
slowmoving sound maybe
for now we “can for does.
everything is we notice why we stay
for ?” and, for
stay and it for it this
the smell sticks from
outside. everything
don't. “can now
damp sticks the sticks the,
smell
notice how
for a
outside
slowmoving sound
maybe why we this “can it stay
like. “can now we “can
for now
while once,
slowmoving sound
, we while “can it stay,
slowmoving from outside.. of. a
slowmoving we
why
the and it does of
slowmoving we notice how
everything maybe we remember why,
but it
like this
sticks. how. a. we so pink we
?” and, it smell of for once
from outside
from outside.
,
sound maybe we, but for a,
does. outside. a. sticks
slowmoving sound of damp sticks it
does. the smell of damp
sticks
sound so we don't. this now we
this for a while ?” and, for
smell a the smell from outside
. a slowmoving we is so
pink
. for “can it stay like
this for a while ?” smell of
outside
sticks from outside is so pink
we notice how everything
is so
now
we keep asking
questions like “will this
happy?” when instead it might be
more interesting to ask
it
leaves on every
written on little sheets of
paper and everybody in the
world
loud all at
then the wind began to blow
and the poems went flying in
the air all around and
everybody just watched it happen
in complete silence
can't help but
and then a lot. and someone
hugs the stranger to their
left and we all
laugh. we ask ourselves
another question we can't hear
because of all the wind and
poems, and that's
realize we didn't want to know
the answers anyway when
there are so many confusing
and beautiful things all
around us anyway. we
laughing and grabbing poems out
deciding to read them and
othertimes using them as napkins.
the wind, the wind is
laughing too.
and woodenbits
suggest a stays nobody really
seems
underthere, a the again
sometimes it from
other are not
okay
without the other
from even trying. and
sometimes it.
the corner
empty except for
grooves in the floorboard, we
smile. the moments going and
going in such a
that we can't take our eyes
off it, noticing just how
inconsistent things are, how blurry
and arbitrary the
differences seem between things and
people and ideas, how musical a
seems to dry.
marbles in a glass
not going
particular
melodies, their
tinkling or rubbing
right back,
so
flickerings
batteries.
water. how's this different?
asking between
and subject
or
or anothersong
thismomentingly
casting
expected
reflects in its
walls and the nearby desk
surface, papers scattered from
months before piled over each
and blindly drawn
paintings
from
laser
that means,
meaning.
we never seem
already happened. or at least
they are
happening.
the clouds evaporating and
the sun coming out, the air
getting so slightly warmer; a
single
different color. who the behinds
through before how's and where
when
againagain the words repeatingly
as we notice a little
sticks to
again where meaning comes
from. a
thrown every instant, fields
of possibility so
terrifyingly
look away
little bug just flying around,
landing, and flying around
again. flying, landing, and
flying around again.
silence and quiet now. a
small voice humming and
laughing in the other room. a
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
this is a beautiful thing.
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.
coming back right on
coming coming back these lines
of becoming in
stick of incense smoke in
breathe and we
breathe lungs
how the sun
of incense is we
breathe ask
laughing it right cue cue
names
that lines and and so and
somehow becoming becoming
smoke and we. laughing but
smile when when the funny how
we can't
laughing! isn't but smile when
and so the the stick of many
lines. we remember
the stick
glowing somehow becoming
breathe and we forget to smile
when the right but smile when
funny when the sun starts
starts starts coming the
these colors. that of that the
stick incense is still
glowing and still glowing and
still breathe breathe
breathe
laughing laughing laughing it
smile when