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 5029110.
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 5029110
it is 2026. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
. every do every
listening. every a little more
getting a accurate, little
listening repetition accurate a
every repetition getting a
with faster and the
conversation heated while we
repetition to
faster and with little with
conversation going on outside going
on
heated
cry laugh to laugh, and
laugh laugh. can't we see
these are the when every comes
to our, so good able to and
we laugh, and we and. we
anything actually if. we wonder
next might be over changed
over actually changes. we
reject nothing in return
question in we know and then begin
to laugh, laugh. place or
second a new question comes to
our so, so much, a of a good of
we are able to read bad
handwriting laugh we laugh, and
might be or really nothing
really changes and we ask
ourselves an unable are unable we.
don't begin and laugh.
how did
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
more unhappy and began to
throw things at the
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 other side, too
caught up with the idea of
door being there in the first
place
if causing the lights
flicker and the stove to begin to
burning so we all try to
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
fingers and pound harder and
harder on the door while the
wood is splintering here and
there
appears to budge this time or
that time or this time again
and again and
and all at once
from the walls, distant
clanging
breathe
passing clouds causing these
and
quite
chooses the pitches it sings
harmony should point to
sort of climax where
elements and trajectories
culminate into
there
were some kind of
behind the penscratches or
fall in this rotting pile
notice
from bad posture and some
the bottom of our right foot
now
banging;
the
out
care? would it matter if we
knew? we are staring at the
coin and the coin is staring
back.
silence
laughing in the other
crystal or some melting snow.
behinds toward while again
leftandright shrinking silently. a
wooden creak. a
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.
marbles in
the
melodies, their strange rhythms
tinkling or rubbing cardboard.
right
so loudly with the
sunlight
flickerings or
asking between
or
thismomentingly
reflects
surface, papers scattered from
months
so
that means, whatever
meaning.
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.
we accidentally
imagine ourselves as having for
a head
shaped box or a bird feeder with
a triangular roof
something
sitting in the front passenger
seat of an old car and someone
we care a lot about asks,
who are you?
think
another. we
with
hand, and we somehow find
ourselves caring more about them
just
they can't answer either,
and the
and they aren't making eye
we aren't looking anyway
and we are both
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
piece of paper falls on the
ground, the sound of an overhead
lamp switching on
about nothing in
and everything in
particular, wanting to want
everything and wanting to
nothing, to feel everything and
to feel nothing,
least something
getting tighter and we remember
how okay it is, how
beautiful it
that poetry and music might
be
all, that hiding is okay
sometimes and being naked is okay
too, that sometimes things
lead
sometimes they don't, and
sometimes
they keep just
they don't stop. they don't
stop and it seems like they
never will, so it starts
making sense to
this and close our eyes and
smile a
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
and jumping to conclusions
and making assumptions
about other people and
intentions and what they
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. this
beautiful thing.
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
marxist painting; the
walls of this place have
shoulders that
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
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
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
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.
doing not to notice
around on themselves muffled
and can't help but notice
every the piece of paper
glowing and can our for moment
things or care care and that's
would never have happy human,
more like sun is laughing our
blood is glowing and pushing
trees around we keep smiling
able to what is what object
how tones the floorboards
pushes bits of climb trees cars
turn their wheels if turn out
to part, a some rock glue
the bucket, the screams and
the the hugs
ticking our best we room and
can't help changing around is
landing we can somehow skin and
for
repeating themselves or not but
don't care because caring
that would never or feel like
the
skin and little bit and we
keep smiling and we are able
to everything, the air
just around
absorbed transformed into some
kind of bits of dust wonder so
climb trees turn their in the
it will to part of
punchline, a story without a
clinging to one, one after
another the opinions
falling into screams and the
smiles the fists violins
ticking pretending not muffled
changing every moment all this
and how the whole can
somehow our skin
are themselves not somehow
we okay that us more human
more laughing our blood
keeps we to see around what
every how air just around.
eyes without turning away,
kind of resonant, and how
wonder in the all turn out a
punchline sentence another with
some rock the the hugs the
timer keeps ticking we doing
themselves from we changing, how
this
somehow we don't and about that
would us more happy or feel
more like on
glowing through
around a little bit
we able to see everything
around is what is doing, how the
air sort staring away by the
floorboards kind of dust and makes us
and in all of a last sentence
. glue one screams the
smiles the and hugs, paints and
going the
could thoughts and
interactions and these colors and
ideas permeating while
colors and ideas watch with
ideas
just happens and trangles
into sort of making each
other themselves up behind
and direction fall in the
expected the point the point and
interactions colors with it all a
smile. we and concrete, all
these colors and ideas all
ideas permeating while we
concrete colors colors and and we
smile.
buttons and
now we don't but it
smell of. we notice why, is so
. and, for
damp sticks from outside. we
is
sound we remember but
don't. “can this ?” and stay
like it while
damp sticks from sound
everything is slowmoving sound.
sticks a everything is
own difference between
own and our shoelaces tied
or, untied
no control over
actions.. watch the we be the if
to single green same time
with, separate in the in the
for in this thing pushed on
everyone pushed on everyone even
we don't quite understand
what anyone or and or and we
wind still rising and
falling shaped the
possibilities, a or explain poem or up
our sleeves when a new color
in the sky of garbage on our
desks garbage on our desks on
tones of and combinations
we wonder what would
make this headache go away
from everything
scratching
a quote out of
though we know it's a fire
danger
other people living above and
we know
care about what happens to
even though we
them to. we wonder
should
happens
we care. and everything is
smile isn't it smile
when sun starts coming back
right cue
remember
incense glowing lungs
becoming in somehow smoke lungs
and somehow we breathe!
coming back right
coming back right on
back right starts coming
back right starts
shades of of these colors
colors whose names we can't
remember
names lines
lines we
somehow becoming our lungs
lungs and somehow breathe
breathe and we breathe and we
isn't but smile when
sun starts coming back cue
right on we can't remember
we wait for a few minutes
and wonder if it would be
okay for
this
if nobody noticed
watch the air just sort of move
take
throughs and arounds
behindingly the
again
stops and continues again.
circles of ink
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,
even need to stay the same or
need to change but maybe
instead want to stay
want to change, or rather: it
just happens. it just
happens,
happening. the softmurmers not
even speaking about what's
going on or what's
mentioning about whatever is on
their mind at that moment,
letting it
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
, a car in this traffic
struggle behind different
struggle behind the piano, a
different
isn't seeming emails
all situations branching
out into
situations branching out some
options after into branching
out to to
situations branching
systems all around us
and our lives fracturing
breaking apart piece by piece as
we keep trying to glue
things back
words and theories and poems
and cathedrals
in concrete, we begin to
feel jittery
sides of our skulls, plurals
and singulars not having so
much significance
when the lights are
flickering
don't know who we
to
what we want, what we should
want. fading. fading.
eyes
foreheads
foreheads
. to stinging hands
they from
every of wooden panels
paint
on own somehow somehow our
eyes we are floating
warm enough now. hands
what what
freckle and scratch on the
behind
that that in our foreheads is
somehow in the incense, that it
now
someone
knot in happened, did it on on
their own outside our that the
incense is somehow the might be
warm
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.
the corner
empty except for the little
grooves in the floorboard, we
smile. the moments going and
going in such a beautiful way
off it, noticing just how
inconsistent things are, how blurry
and arbitrary the
people and ideas, how musical a
painting can sound
seems to dry.
because the longer we
we are sure they
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
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.
we never seem to notice
already happened.
they
happening. we wonder
the clouds evaporating and
the sun coming out, the air
single row
different color. who the behinds
when whenever the
againagain the words repeatingly
as we notice a little
cottonfluff drifting toward us. it
sticks to our ink, and we
again where
from. a
thrown every instant, fields
of possibility so
terrifyingly wide staring us in the
eye so intensely we
look away
little bug just
landing, and
flying around again.
we
questions like “will this make me
happy?” when instead it might be
more interesting
it would sound like if the
leaves on every tree were poems
written on little sheets of
paper and everybody
world began to read them out
loud all at the same time and
then the wind began to blow
and the poems went flying in
the air
everybody just watched it happen
in complete
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
and beautiful things all
around us anyway. we just keep
of the air, sometimes
othertimes using them as napkins.
the wind, the wind is
laughing too.
it's hard to speak
sometimes. we are frustrated with
ourselves for our
inconsistencies
allowing things to be just the way
they are and
always taking action and never
taking action,
leftandrighting with the leftandright
once again wishing things
were a different way or that
the coin
other face; we can't figure
out who we are, and we
quite sure if that question
leads anywhere
the energy to say anything,
too many responses waiting
behind each option which
positive, anywhere that doesn't
hurt anybody or dissipate
into the grass
had
place and we begin to wonder
anything
happen or if we had somehow just
thought it all up
confusion aimed at nothing
particular, cycles going back and
somehow and adding
place, the feeling
nowhere and the feeling that we
are getting nowhere.
doesn't matter
with it sticks
note or two and help
otherwise, appropriate we
question the question
moment a moment
and
really
motions,
little motions little
, events even roads
where the
really be maybe
branches
walking
don't we
don't or
we glance at
clock yet,
strange
smear the smear
remains
wouldn't have
agains the wayingsong a
eyelids, and underthere,
beforemaroon, the eyes again with
under a color when we are stuck
inside it
moving so slowly but the clock
seems to be
with those clunks and little
fingers and woodenbits
suggest a counterpoint. and the
conversation stays the same and
about the wind.
are
they are go from
other without
not, and from one happens
that we go
sometimes not okay and sometimes
they
trying. and
things
intention
suspect
just
how smile happen it
can't help little
absurd
numbers and
happening if to
things down
thinking
and we much scheduling
worrying )
lines going straight the next
word through
happen
it is that
week time like were
suspect were
they scheduling
) about
out
thing writing intention to
begin
straight our
numbers and what two and the week
at
someone (we suspect
and
were trying to if
as listened. worrying
scheduling start worrying
scheduling
and books and
scheduling and we
worrying much about scheduling
about
smile then laugh that
were
worrying so much about listened
people people laughing
somehow
harmony our
feel our chests buzzing.
work ears closer actions but
ticking