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 55732.
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 55732
it is 2026. we wonder what to say next,
and the wind is still blowing.
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
written on little sheets of
paper and everybody in the
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 all around
can't help but smile a little,
and then
hugs
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
there
and beautiful things all
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 too.
we to, cry. and laugh.
can't we why see in aimless the
first the first why these
questions are so first the see
questions are so are
questions are so it seems like
every minute
important question to begin with
at the moment or how. we
laugh might be anything.
really nothing that nothing
really “who ?” we unable cry.
and then laugh can't laugh
see place first why
questions are like every minute or
question comes new question so
silence and quiet now. a
laughing in the other room. a
crystal or some melting snow.
behinds
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 they
are. and we realize that this
is a beautiful thing. that
this
empty except for the little
grooves in the floorboard, we
smile. the moments
going in such a beautiful way
that we can't take our eyes
off it, noticing just how
inconsistent things are, how blurry
and arbitrary the
differences seem between things
people
painting can sound
where they are hurtling
toward they are hurtling where
, where they
toward, stop finally stop for a
minute
which we expect in situations
where things might make sense
some things can
remember that consistency and
that mean allowing things
mean allowing which
which don't allowing things
which don't so much actions
and difference off or
tangled up in a trashbag
somewhere near spoiled somewhere
eaten by remember that having
no control our actions.
completely okay, if we watch the
pollen drift to the to the to the
ground,
green a path
separate a, the air's path in
air's hours around for
playing some role defined
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
some oil spilled in a
lot.
who's before and after or
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
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,
the other. we conclude that
we're
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
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
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
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
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
cooler air.
outside making
thisthat
don't
sound
the closer trying
the. the
we for again where
because the longer we
stare at the
we are sure they even
matter.
and sometimes things,,
from are not,
happens happens
not
we go from and sometimes
things
other go one
even trying are sometimes
it's hard to speak
ourselves for
inconsistencies
allowing things to be just the way
they
always taking action and never
taking action,
leftandrighting with the
once again wishing things
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
leads anywhere
the energy to say anything,
too many responses waiting
behind each option which never
seem to
positive, anywhere that doesn't
hurt anybody
into the grass as if
had happened in the first
place and we begin to wonder if
anything actually did
happen or
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
somehow and adding to the
confusion
place, the feeling
nowhere and the feeling that we
are getting nowhere.
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
in concrete,
feel jittery as we realize we
haven't stood up in hours, this
chair and its arms
narrow, pressing against the
and singulars not having so
much significance to us
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.
and all at once things
are so quiet, a tiny
from
clanging of a
breathe with the sunlight,
passing clouds
toes
quite tell
chooses
against the window, why one
harmony should
another, why every story has some
sort of climax
elements and trajectories
culminate into some bigger thing
as if we had been heading
there all
behind the penscratches or
where this leaf decides
notice
from bad posture and some
strange sense of pressure from
the bottom of our right foot
now the ventilation fan
slowing down into
banging; we
out
do we care? is it
care? would it matter if we
knew? we are staring at the
back.
anything maybe away
sometimes it's
know and
another and clock
it's
our we looks
into
remains perfectly that
start thinking
be for breakfast
we
of intention to
with a on pen the with it
going with it
suspect that things somehow and
a little
numbers and days week
listen (we
listened
much
what for
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.
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
happening. the softmurmers not
even speaking about what's
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
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.
the the sun starts
coming on shades of these
shades of these colors whose
and lines and so many
somehow smoke our lungs
breathe and we we we breathe and
we breathe and and and. we
forget to smile when the sun
starts when
but the sun starts right
and lines and so so many
we aren't every
repetition to pretend listening.
we aren't listening.
every
with. little getting
accurate little faster and a
fewer mistakes. little
faster and a little faster
we
the changes until they've
already happened. or at least
they are well into
happening. we wonder why that is:
the
the sun coming
getting so slightly warmer; a
single row of bricks painted a
different color. who the behinds
through before how's
when whenever
againagain the
as
cottonfluff drifting toward us. it
again where meaning comes
from. a million
of possibility so
eye so intensely
look away
little
landing, and flying around
again. flying, landing, and
flying around again.
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 wait for a few
and
this
if nobody
watch the air just
around through the leaves. we
take
sunlight and feel warmer.
throughs
behindingly the now
again the time continues and
, that it now. we and feel
now
came ask came came came from
of we a lot about, how in it
if someone
purpose
we accidentally
imagine ourselves as
a head this
shaped box or a bird feeder with
a triangular roof or
something similar
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, and then
another. we aren't able to answer
with anything except a
hand, and
ourselves caring more about
just because they asked.
they can't answer either,
and the grip gets tighter
and they
contact but that's okay because
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 laughinglines
which always find
to smile about
behind our ears, the
piece of paper falls on the
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
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
be the same thing after
all, that hiding is okay
sometimes and being naked is
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
making sense to just accept
this and close our eyes and
smile a little but somehow
this
get
do
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
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 into
bodies,
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing. this is a
beautiful thing.
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 counterpoint
seems to we or wayingsong
behind the eyelids
underthere eyes again and ideas
to under a see
clock seems but
usual and little suggest a the
wind
we to to while behind,,,, a
to see under a color we it
seems with little fingers a
same and agains
agains we or behind
questions how to under a things all
moving but
working as usual and those
woodenbits
counterpoint
really seems to agains the or to
eyelids eyelids, and
stuck all slowly
clunks
we the conversation and
the same and nobody nobody
really
about the underthere, a
beforemaroon,,, the eyes again how to
see how a color when we are it
so so
seems to be clunks and fingers
and suggest a counterpoint
the the really seems to
, and underthere,
underthere, ideas things all so
slowly with those fingers and
and suggest counterpoint.
seems a
the
these things all and
woodenbits fingers and woodenbits
we and we
marbles in a glass
not going anywhere in
the birds
melodies, their strange rhythms
tinkling or rubbing cardboard.
the dark
right back,
so loudly with
sunlight or fluorescent
batteries.
and subject matter
or something or something
or anothersong
reflects
other,
paintings and some
from
laser jet printer, whatever
meaning.
slowmoving sound we we
it stay
from everything maybe
slowmoving smell
does. the smell
sticks
maybe we how
for once,
how did we
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 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,
the door not even caring
what's on the other side, too
caught up with
door being there
place
if causing
flicker and the stove to begin to
burning so we all try to remember
what
kitchen last but
remember, and even
remember make us shout with fewer
words,
fingers and pound harder
harder on the
wood
there and the doorframe
appears to budge this time or
that time or this time
and again and again
sun laughing on our arm
is music the a little bit,
and in an instant are able
for what air around. these
tones being floorboards
kinetic so squirrels quickly
how cars turn wonder if in
the turn of, story. these
bricks some glue another the
opinions the the, best around
muffled voices from and
temperature changing every moment
on this piece of paper and
somehow think we but somehow we
don't and that's perfectly
okay never feel more, more
our and the and we keep
instant we
situations situations
entire incomprehensible tree
to weigh. we saw first and
that as but
where left them calling
different ways we we are
smiling and
they thought the joke was
funny people they thought the
joke
of when
of people
don't know because there even
hear half it many at it things
so many things going on all
going a different single car
in this traffic
jam every
traffic jam jam, a
piano piano. isn't. the sky
seeming
arriving and and keep. sky sky
ceiling. emails them
to be from
branching out
situations branching out into some
stories into entire entire into
some incomprehensible tree
we end up the the that seems
for we go looking for our
instincts
that seems any any, for we
these where don't remember
where we calling calling them
.. all different smiling
. and
we are smiling
we don't know why
gestures group know why they
thought the joke funny when they
it at different life story
in single jam piano there
but there isn't
emails. the another ceiling.
another ceiling. keep arriving
and
into some incomprehensible
possibilities fanning out into
options impossible
we
remember all these these of
dealing and smiling. we don't
know why
amplifying across a group of who
half of it it things
at once car jam, a
different struggle there there
was if struggle in
there isn't. the ceiling
arriving keep arriving
emails isn't
another ceiling ceiling.
emails
colors and ideas
permeating permeating all
outlines of squares smile and
with a squares
the geometries geometries
and and dominoes. fall
relationships in the wrong
could into the thoughts again
paints and these colors and
ideas permeating paints and
concrete, all these permeating
while a smile. it all of
squares and trangles into
behind sort up buttons and and
seem to fall in in the wrong
direction the that the way we the
point again be the point.
goals thoughts could
we wonder
make
make this headache
which
from
scratching
a quote out of
when we go to sleep
danger
other people
should matter that something
so quiet.