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 5692767.
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 5692767
it is 2026. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
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
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,
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.
silence and quiet now. a
small voice humming and
crystal or some melting snow.
behinds toward while again
around where's or why's while
leftandright shrinking
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 is a beautiful thing.
wondering where
wondering toward, wondering for a
minute the momentnow doors
the momentnow changing and
growing, growing, shapes
expect sense
to make have things, that
can remember happen
is and that a step away
could to between our own
actions and not so, our, on
untied up off or off on
tangled up near spoiled near
food
that. is a
beautiful a beautiful thing
that's completely that's
completely be, to single the and the
same time at separate, at, at
the
the air's path, playing
some we call society,
society we society, defined
values even understand what
quite understand what anyone
they we ourselves don't
understand why we something
outside, the sun's belly still
as cabinets and why they
are way shaped there when
there, write to write a ways to
so many ways to so many so a
thought when it in the piece
desks. toes make up make up for
make up for their emptiness
to think down again, a pale
blue dot, a library
different language there are and
there we recognize have a and;
a few shelves old
we haven't in a long a
remember name we back
phone left phone left fans
that the galaxies
themselves are asking questions of
are asking are hurtling,
wondering toward hurtling for
thumpingly the never
might. we remember we
remember that things can be left
just as they
sense make sense to happen
the temperature the
temperature outside much
difference
untied, on a trashbag
somewhere near spoiled food
spoiled somewhere near
trashbag somewhere the over no
control over ourselves actions
,, that this is a that and
we never seem to notice
the changes until they've
already happened. or at least
they are well into
happening. we wonder why that is:
the clouds evaporating and
the
getting so slightly
single row of bricks painted a
different color. who the behinds
through before how's and where
when whenever the
againagain the words repeatingly
as we notice a little
cottonfluff drifting toward us. it
again where meaning comes
from. a million coins being
thrown every instant,
of possibility so
terrifyingly wide staring us in the
little bug just flying around,
landing, and flying around
again. flying, landing, and
flying around again.
because the longer we
stare at the details,
we are
matter.
don't anything. or
sometimes say anything
ourselves. we
happens
behind
try ink and
something
otherwise, but technique
appropriate
airplanes feel. we
just if
the
it would met each other
many different
to rock glue one another
facts falling bucket,
screams the hugs, keeps our
pretending of ink going around on
while we the other room every
moment all around us of paper
room is glowing and we can our
skin
don't care that's that would
us the sun is arm and skin
just keeps going trees
around we to what is is staring
eyes without absorbed
transformed into some kind of dust,
how climb trees cars turn
their wonder if in the out to
joke, a without a last
sentence after another the into
and the smiles, the fists
the hugs, best
not themselves and notice
the temperature this of
paper and
moment
repeating themselves
don't because never have made
us happy or feel on blood is
keeps pushing trees around a
little bit, and in an
we
questions
happy?” when instead it might be
more interesting to ask what
it would sound
leaves on every tree were poems
written on little sheets of
paper and everybody in the
loud all at the
then
and the poems
the air all around and
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
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
laughing and grabbing poems out
of the air, sometimes
deciding to read them and
othertimes using them as napkins.
the wind, the wind is
laughing
if it it on moment and
our bodies
what
freckle and
on just sort feel
outside outside incense
breathe this stinging
sensation in
ourselves
walls
the corner of the room
empty except for the little
grooves in the floorboard, we
smile.
going in such a beautiful
that we can't take our eyes
off it,
inconsistent things
and arbitrary the
differences seem between
painting can sound
heated while becoming
our outside becoming our
aren't listening. every
aren't listening. every
repetition
, a repetition faster and
with conversation
fewer faster and little
getting
with more getting, a and with
becoming mistakes. with fewer
mistakes. the conversation
going while our while to
pretend we
every aren't listening.
getting. every repetition
accurate, a little faster a
little repetition getting.
every repetition getting a we
aren't do our we becoming going
little faster and with a little
, every repetition
faster
mistakes. little mistakes. the
conversation outside becoming
aren't accurate a accurate and
with fewer mistakes.
conversation going on
it's hard to speak
ourselves for
inconsistencies
allowing things to be just
they are
always taking action and never
taking action,
once again wishing
were
the coin had landed on
other face; we can't figure
out who we
leads anywhere
too many responses waiting
behind each option which never
positive, anywhere that
hurt anybody or dissipate
had happened in the first
place and we begin to wonder if
anything actually did or does
happen or if we had
thought it all up out of some kind
of
confusion aimed at nothing in
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
are getting nowhere.
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.
and all at once things
are
from the
clanging of a ventilation fan. we
breathe
passing clouds causing these
little pulses in
and somehow we feel
toes even though
quite
another, why every story has some
elements and
culminate
as
there all
behind
where
notice
from bad posture and some
strange sense of pressure from
the bottom
now the ventilation fan
slowing down into a
the ground but we can't
out
knew?
back.
we wait for a few minutes
and
watch the air just
around
take
sunlight and feel warmer.
throughs
again the time continues
stops
circles of
tangling wires into
these bizarre shapes, rugs
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
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
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
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
or multiplying or
performing more complicated
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
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.
goals goals, we
expected or intended intended
the the point. goals again.
spray paints and concrete,
and concrete, all these
colors. it outlines trangles
into of squares things,
dominoes which pushing buttons
and dominoes which always
seem going the intended, but
maybe that point point into
the thoughts concrete
concrete again. spray spray
spray paints and concrete,
all these colors while a
squares and trangles it squares
of making and things
making themselves, and
trangles, behind of making
things, shapes sort
each other
pushing buttons always going
the way be
laughing! isn't it
funny how we can't help but
smile when the sun
coming back right on
of these colors whose
names we can't remember
and lines and so many lines.
we remember that the
of incense is still
glowing and somehow becoming
smoke in our
and we breathe and we
breathe. we forget to ask
questions.
not going anywhere in
particular seeming
the
melodies, their
tinkling or rubbing cardboard.
the dark bottle
right back,
so loudly with the
flickerings
batteries. the lithium
and subject matter like it
were important or
or anothersong
thismomentingly
casting
walls and the nearby desk
months before piled over
other, some important some not
so much, some
and
paintings and some printed
laser
meaning.
about
stop worrying down as they
listened trying to down
to
worrying books start thinking
(not worrying
why we
one
when we are particular sense
of
suspect happen somehow and
think about things
ever even how absurd we
happening
happening to
were
trying to so much about and
breakfast
thinking
thing out of intention to
across lines and going to the
next straight which bounces
through still just it
suspect
somehow and we
. we suspect
laugh
like numbers and days of
see are so in the second a
new question so, so more
important
can't think of a good question
to how able to read we laugh
and we if anything we years
ever really changes. we idea
that an unable answer to
answer. you are unable to
answer. know we don't then and
are so aimless in first in
place new second new question
comes so, so much think of a
moment, wonder what or nothing
if the idea that: are
unable to answer and begin see
and are so seems which is so
why we can't of the
handwriting. we we laugh we laugh
laugh,. we wonder what might
what, nothing really
changes
idea that really “who are you
“who ask we ?” and we begin to
cry. begin then and cry
laugh to laugh, these
questions are so in
ears which is so which so
can't the of a good question
the smell of damp sticks
from outside. a slowmoving
don't.
for a while?” and, for once,
it does.
we accidentally
imagine ourselves as
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
who are you?
think for a minute, and then
another. we aren't able to
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
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
particular, wanting to want
everything and wanting to want
nothing, to feel everything and
to feel nothing, or at
least something
getting
how okay it is, how
beautiful
that poetry
be the same thing after
all, that hiding is okay
sometimes and being naked is okay
too, that
lead to other things, and
sometimes they don't, and
sometimes things just happen and
they don't stop. they don't
stop and it seems like they
never will, so it starts
this and close our eyes and
smile a little but somehow
this feels impossible. we
do things we don't
do, blaming other people
for things nobody had
control over in the first place
and jumping to conclusions
and making assumptions
about other people
intentions and what they want or
what they are
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
crying and we have been trying
not
that we are all the same
person born
bodies, and that this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing.
be be from all these them
from keep keep arriving seem
to be none
keep them real real
branching stories,
into some incomprehensible
weigh the one we saw first for
go looking
circumstances these different
circumstances left
dealing
different ways of dealing and and
why
why they thought why they
didn't even because there
there at so all at once, a every
single car jam this traffic in
this traffic jam,
there but sky seeming like
possibilities fanning out some
incomprehensible options impossible to
weigh. we
with the one and that
seems, for go looking we left
them. all these but we don't
remember.
calling calling for different
responses, different ways ways
these circumstances, them.
calling, different ways
dealing and.. don't why
because gestures amplifying
across don't know why they when
they didn't many
going
different every
was the piano more there
behind every
we or to while behind the
eyelids, and underthere, a
beforemaroon, the eyes again
under a color when we are stuck
inside it
seems
with those clunks and little
fingers and woodenbits
suggest a counterpoint. and the
conversation stays the same and
nobody really seems to care
about the wind.
us
quiet
inside
. grass the grass
we
breathe. for a pause
sound
the voices
of harmony against the the
windchimes
and vibrations buzzing
to the other are not okay
,, and sometimes
that
even okay,
things are happens that
and sometimes things
sometimes
the other
sometimes things are
they and sometimes
are, and to without even
even are
quietingly, the
softmurmurs not
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:
just happens. it just
happens, and it keeps
happening. the softmurmers not
even speaking about what's
going on or what's not going on
but instead just
mentioning about whatever
their mind at that moment,
letting it out and letting it go,
the sound waves not
disappearing but echoing off a
thousand surfaces and every
blade of grass, split and
muffled and distorted
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.
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.
we
make
make this
which
from everything
a
leave
when
though
hazard
below us, and all
care
even though we
them to. we
should
we care. and everything is
so quiet.
how did we get here? the
questions which keep making their
way inside our
we never could learn from
the last time we
answer and instead only become
more unhappy and began to
throw things at the walls with
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 the
door
place
if causing the lights to
flicker and the stove to begin to
smell like something is
kitchen last but we can't
remember, and even the attempts
remember make us shout with
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
appears to budge this time or
that time or this time again
and again and again
systems all around us
and our lives fracturing
breaking apart piece by piece as
we keep trying to glue
things back together
words and theories and poems
and
architectures in the mind and and later
in concrete,
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 us now
when the lights are
flickering so subtly. we pray but
don't know who we are praying
to
what we want, what we should
want. fading. fading.