Enter the halls of Parliament with Varic, Coron of the Corvaric Coast.
We’re thrilled to share an excerpt from Aspects by John M. Ford, out from Tor Books on April 5th.
TROY: The Movie
By John M. Ford
Originally published in Weird Tales, Spring 1994
The wind still blows from Hisarlik
Shaking the great white sign, four letters
In painted plywooden proclamation
That this is the City of Dreams:
The Place of the Epic, Where Heroes Lived
And sometimes Died. If you will cut
As Schliemann cut, guided by the tale,
Through the hill, the cities,
Ordering the setups and scenes into continuity,
What runs through the many-gated light
Of the fabulous Moviola
Will be not Homer not Virgil not Truth
But in its own way real
As anything in the darkness:
Popcorn and figs in the lobby,
Ladies remove your hats,
The lights go down—
The worm drives helically through the wood
And does not know the dust left in the bore
Once made the table integral and good;
And suddenly the crystal hits the floor.
Electrons find their paths in subtle ways,
A massless eddy in a trail of smoke;
The names of lovers, light of other days
Perhaps you will not miss them. That's the joke.
The universe winds down. That's how it's made.
But memory is everything to lose;
Although some of the colors have to fade,
Do not believe you'll get the chance to choose.
Regret, by definition, comes too late;
Say what you mean. Bear witness. Iterate.
