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List Price: $29.98 | | Label: Paramount
Salesrank: 19519
Released: July 25, 2006 |
| Our Price: $8.78 |
| Used Price: $0.99 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Colin Farrell is Arturo Bandini, a young would-be writer who comes to Depression-era Los Angeles to make a name for himself. While there, he meets beautiful barmaid Camilla (Salma Hayek), a Mexican immigrant who hopes for a better life by marrying a wealthy American. Both are trying to escape the stigma of their ethnicity in blue-blood California. The passion that arises between them is palpable – if they could only set aside their ambitions and submit to it. Oscar-winning screenwriter Robert Towne (Chinatown) directs this outcasts’ tale of desire in the desert, co-starring Donald Sutherland (Pride and Prejudice).
Description of Ask the Dust:
Adapted from the acclaimed 1939 novel by John Fante, Ask the Dust represents a 30-year labor of love for Robert Towne, the Oscar®-winning screenwriter of Chinatown. It's easy to see why Towne was drawn to Fante's classic tale of ill-fated romance in Depression-era Los Angeles: It's a tenacious, hard-scrabble valentine to Towne's beloved city, to the lonely craft of writing, and to the elusive whims of love. Towne must have been inspired by the challenge of capturing the inner life and outer environs of Fante's literary hero, struggling writer Aturo Bandini (played by Colin Farrell), as he arrives in L.A. circa 1932, sells occasional stories to legendary American Mercury editor H.L. Mencken (heard only in voice-overs provided by film critic Richard Schickel), lives in the seedy Alta Loma hotel in the dusty neighborhood of Bunker Hill (where a fellow resident is played by Donald Sutherland), and falls into a stormy relationship with Camilla (Salma Hayek), a Mexican waitress who shares Bandini's immigrant dreams for a better life in sunny California. There are good times and bad in this passionately combative romance (and Hayek has never been more sensuously appealing onscreen), and Towne has done a perfect job of capturing an arid combination of hope, depression, and artistic ambition, working in fruitful collaboration with celebrated cinematographer Caleb Deschanel (The Black Stallion) on meticulously authentic Depression-era sets built on location (of all places) in South Africa. Ask the Dust never fully succeeds as an emotionally involving drama (the lives of writers are notoriously difficult to translate to film), but there's something undeniably seductive about this curious and great-looking film... and we're not just talking about Farrell and Hayek cavorting naked in the ocean. Even that memorable scene is infused with the threat of broken dreams, as if Towne were reminding us (and himself) that nothing good comes without sacrifice.--Jeff Shannon
Ask the Dust Reviews:
Romance in it's finer form ... 
2009-10-25 - I love both Colin Farrell and Salma Hayek as actors/performers, which was why I got the movie in the first place, and I was not disappointed by either performance.
Salma is a woman who is exquisitely beautiful and is an excellent artist. This movie, like the few others I have seen of her, she is a bit type-cast, but works very well with that, I think. There must be scripts out there who can stretch her performance abilities to the limit and I as a fan hope that will soon come about.
Colin was a surprise for me. I have, since the first movie I watched of him, thought him to be a very good actor/artist - most of his movies (that I've watched) have been action-packed, hard-hitting, yet here he portrayed an inexperienced debonair young man, and pulled it off beautifully. To me, he was real convincing in the role he portrayed, and he has a beautiful voice, so listening to the narration throughout the movie was easy on the ear. The length of the film did not bother me at all (just under two hours.)
It is a lovely story, and for me, it was well-played, and the characters were well filled by the actors who portrayed them, even Donald Sutherland. Being a romantic at heart and watching movies and reading books that are romance based, I usually prefer those with the fairytale, happy ending, no matter how unrealistic, so was sad about the ending of this movie, but it seems to fit the story very well.
Great actors such as Sutherland do not always have to be the star of the show to make an impact, and Donald Sutherland is one of those who has such a range and scope of talent, every role I have seen him in, he has fitted himself to the character, like a glove. So as Hellfrick, he is a good fit in this movie.
The dialog was interesting and gave me a few good giggles, got tears in my eyes, and made me squirm with embarrassment for the characters at times. With the conflict between Arturo and Camilla, the dialog was just fine, and the narration was well played by Colin Farrell.
View of 1933 America
2009-09-12 -
I was expecting another Mexican movie bashing white culture. But the fact it was in English rather than Spanish I thought it may have been a offshoot of the dust theory being pushed by some religions. Whatever my mistakes were I watched it through because it continued to baffle me like a mystery story and I couldn't figure out what was going to happen next. So much for my stupid reasons for watching it.
The movie was brilliantly done. It was about a shy handsome Mexican writer posing as an Italian writer whose quest to get live off a blonde hair blue eyed American woman in order to finance his writing career was thwarted when he met a Mexican prostitute who was in the United States illegally and serving drinks in a bar. A fiery relationship resulted when she is attracted to him due to his Mexican features. He is attracted to her for the same reason and eventually gets over his shyness for women and falls in love with her and vows to make her into a legitimate American citizen and marry her. The movie portrayed the landscape beautifully and had many historical elements. I had no idea for instance that Florida had an earthquake or that the dust problem we have in Los Angeles today was also considered a problem is 1933. As today the industrial age's pollution on palm trees was also an aspect of the movie. This was a gutsy movie showing the biases of many American cities against Mexicans and Jews. I value this movie as another voice in the ethnic battles which have taken over the politics in the United States today. This movie attempts to address many issues at once. Birth deformities is another issue aired in this movie. Whether you fully understood the movie or not the attempt to recreate the 1933's was masterfully accomplished and the historical value well worth it.
An overwhelming experience, a fine piece of film-making
2009-07-24 - There is no doubt in the fact that the most genuine films are the ones those you can relate to life. Some films leave a big impression because its charecters are just so genuine, so admirable... you can't help but feel their greif, joy and just any emotion they seem to potray. 'Ask the dust' is one of those films. Not just good cinematography, but excellent chemistry between the pair succeeds in an attempt to make a neat drama film. Salma Hayek is simply beyond words, she delivers a stunning peformence, she makes you share her emotions, gets you involved in her situations. She is bold, naughty, beautiful and delivers a performence close to perfection. 'Ask the dust' is a beautiful film throwing light on existence of relationships, emotions, feelings and atmospheres. You can't afford to miss this piece of cinema.
Salma Hayek is Gorgeous! Yowsers!
2008-10-05 - The story line? Who cares. Salma Hayek was sexy, alluring, beautiful and inviting in this movie. Oh, I'm sorry, Colin Farrell (Phone Booth, S.W.A.T., Minority Report, Daredevil, The Recruit, Miami Vice) as Arturo Bandini the hard luck novelist. Roller-coaster emotions for both the stars and a very sad ending. But there were some very touching scenes in between the fighting and lovey-dovey stuff. Nothing more to say but "Salma Hayek!" Oh Yeah.
A MOVIE AS WARM AND SLEEPLESS AS THE SANTA ANAS
2008-08-18 - All the reviews told the plot, technical analysis, but I hold onto the movie's nonrefundable ticket. You sit there assaulting yourself with popcorn, larger than life images of beautiful people and places, sudden themes, unheard of music layered throughout, all a sensual violation...almost a rape even....all a confused musk that remains after. I read forbiddingly, without permission, between the lines. That's what I remember in helpless dreams doing Freudian battle with that stupid persistent sunrise; during sleepwalking curious subliminal marathons that keep me from recognizing the "Do Not Walk" signal at the fatal intersection, or flailing for thoughts from the warm security of my tomb as I try to connect the dots between art and reality, wondering if my paid fare of admission and effort were just wasted on what could have been good video game quality time. I watched this movie release from my gut like the The Hungry Alien, still giving thanks that it was not judgment but lesson, choreography not script, as I scurry to put my finger into the dyke, alone. I rest my good ear to the ground, hands hard pressed to soil, hoping to hear the hopeful resolving consonant triad of triumphant mothers giving smile to my rebirth.
"I forgive you," your mother, your lovers say, in their low, unheard, thoughtful collective frequency. "Stop worrying, my child, my husband. We are not perfect, although I hoped."
One in pain gives you life, the other in pleasure.... reminds, encourages you of it.
I asked the heated Santa Ana Random Dust for definition, like a pest, asking what He could not randomly give. His stern, frowning rebuking silence, for Him I give up my anonymity.
I, a sullied worker with raw bloodied hands working the fields demanding submission from a Saint?
Art demands the dangerous: every viewer, every reader, every listener finds his person individual....and then, mostly for worse, We Sing The Body Electric upon our discovery, impiously disfiguring the drawing, the poem, the song in silent reconstruction. But for Some, a soiled naughty halo appears in place of the coda. You hoist your ego overboard in older age, now a conduit, finally invulnerable from the winsome upside down faces of your changing theater. If you can touch one life.........
Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa from "The Warm Velvet Box."
That's a long ride.... my personal connection.
.... That was my Warning Label. My own "No Spin Zone."
Arturo Bandini, not a name of Grande Poets, but of a fertilizer company, a writer, an observer who finally figured out, during on the job training, that you just need to write what you ....observe.... and that which interests you in honest acceptance. He writes his publisher back East that he doesn't have anything to write about, not realising that he already is!! The rest begins to follow, like his "Legions of Ghosts crawling in from the seas through the fog at night"
I've seen a thousand foggy Southern California ocean nights. I wasn't ready for that line; I was ready for Camilla and the skin on surf scene EVERYONE knew was coming!!! Steinbeck can wait...
And I am still a weak man, refereeing my mind, body and soul...Which of the three of us will finally tire of this race? Camilla wins this one as my heart breaks for just one more time for a beautiful woman just out of my reach.
Arturo, you Goof. Are you me, or am I you?? What's wrong with us?
And it's the little things in a big city viewed afresh that Arturo Bandini, eyes wide open still, from an undefined stunted childhood suddenly realises is before him, like an unpainted canvas waiting for the splash of an outsider's definition. No drugs, no alcohol needed when so much of the Technicolor everything is new and assaults the unrubbed virgin velvet of his imagination. And what isn't there to observe in the sub-desert Urban Genesis Assault of 1930's Los Angeles?
Women most of all: mysterious, unapproachable, coppered and bedroom athletic; women, probably there a starlet on loan from the New Jewish Hollywood Empire just down the street; women, confident, as young and fashioned as the city they watch being built; women, with blond curls dripping from spectacular hats with spidery veils that flirt intruders' wishing the taste of Cabernet Lips, a flimsy weave protecting fevered eyes that melt hot diamonds as easily as the grace and respect of helpless men who follow loosening their wedding bands pondering Faustian deals. Women, proud women clicking their high heels on freshly swathed walkways their men just left for them; women, wading through the Sainted Santa Ana's warmth, that air hot like opium on skin, embarrassed at their fragrant sweat.
....and a woman, an illegal alien who works the scullery: Camilla, the most beautiful of all. Camilla, as a defrocked nun, banished from finery, reduced to peasant shoes, who serves five cent coffee as communion wine, treating it as a fine rustic protected vintage hijacked from next Sunday's Bishop's Altar Mass, secretly hoping, sharing, pushing it's redemption, not in a church, but in a coffee shop.
Camilla: with deadly eyes that flash at you to pull over, like police warning lights in the dead of night, waiting for you to plead your innocence. You know that one look into those eyes and you will drink the night's rum. You stagger, insanely innocent, indefensibly guilty.
Camilla: Once her humble servant, once her defeatism, once her dangerous insolence, once her challenging, once her unwavering eyes and daring sarcastic smile with folded arms, once her insecurity, once her 1930's female vulnerability, impossibly unhidden even by her latitude complexion.
East Coast boyish cold Winter's adolescence meets the anxious heat of a Southern California precocious Summer's sexuality.
East Coast snobbism meets West Coast racism.
He rows, fearing sharks. She swims, defying them.
It's all a learning experience for both, stalled by ethnic pride, a terrible shared rebuking, accelerated by an obvious finite. Camilla is a tragic figure, bruised outside, an injured fabric outline for her inner organic consumption only Arturo Bandini, in all his kinetic writings seemed unaware of. Maybe his canvas was so full. There were only so many colours on his board. Maybe his mix was off. The Moment, impossibly lingered, was missed.
Been there, done that, Arturo...
I guess it's a Guy Thing.
No wonder you hate us, Ladies!
But just give....me....a moment so that I can figure this out....
Let me go back and look at my Superheroes:
Cisco Kid and Diablo, Roy Rogers and Trigger, Superman and Krypto.
Can you, My Loves, be as clean; can you accept such images as uncomplicated and silently dedicated as my childhood heroes? And why do you always ask more from us?
Cisco was not a matador.
Roy drove a jeep.
Superman wears glasses, as I....
Lois Lane falls in love with Superman, not Clark Kent
OK, enough, you're right; Arturo Bandini is selfish and infantile, and a most unpleasurable irritant, not the stuff of Superheroes. For him, words meant more than pictures...those properly conjugated verbs more moving than a flirtive touch from an interested stranger, hope more than achievement, the Past more precious than the Now. The future, Oh My God, the Future!!! A giddy anticipated moment of finding ridiculous, useless unknown presents at Christmas time or a birthday....The Chocolate Feast of Forever Youth. When he did do something right, it wasn't quite good enough. His life's novel always had time for a rewrite, even if his characters didn't. Time was what he needed. Time: His mother probably gave him time. Give Arturo Bandini another 50 years and he would have finally been ready for Our Camilla. Camilla, a Lover, not a Mother couldn't wait, the pages of her life yellowing fast in the dry Southern California heat. Camilla, our Superheroine in her own right, shut her mouth, folded up Her tawdry cape, and died not fighting the good fight, waiting for Arturo to let go of his childhood to become a man, and to save his woman.
We like to think things were less complicated ...back then..but we didn't have the learning curve to figure out those....less complicated things....back then.
We always seem to be behind.
But, thank God, not as behind as Arturo, who notices those new breezy California palm trees outside his window more than Camilla's absence of underwear one uninvited evening. A Beautiful Woman's rejected seducing is perhaps the greatest Tragedy poetic.
Angel's Flight lives! I saw it....and not as a movie prop.
I love LA
I love well placed thoughtful Period Pieces.
I love this movie and all the little molecules of memory it excited.
And I love transplanted Mexican Women flirting naked in California moonlit surf indecently asking to be liked before they were loved...
Arturo was late, I would have been there then, Camilla, writing your poetry all these years later, as I am now. And I would have breathed all the badness possible from your lungs into mine, giving you time, so that I, rifling through time, would recite our memory for those that wish to listen a thousand years later.
I am a strong man, but I run from people as I run my marathons, never a dedicated away sprint from my shadow, following mountains, chasing clouds...and, unlike the small people below, I can run forever.
They are content, oily, shapeless and lazy, thinking they have won something worthy. I am not. I am skinny and hungry and uncommonly without thirst.
They burrow from your garlic's rose. Every morning I am outraged, having to wash away your lover's perfume. For them the day runs dry. For us the night runs moist and catabolic, chaotic, unpredictable as a monsoon. In our unifying dreams we blink each other our morning's confidence.
How arrogant are we? Does Saturday's Secret Confession await? Does Sunday's Public Host run through us, unnourished?
Why? How can that be? After all, I toil below in our kitchen table, urged on by the sleepless merging flutes of Mozart, the frozen psychic mist of Issac Hayes and his irreverent sexual African cookbook... before....beyond...the memory of all of us. I satisfy, shut the mouths of jealous tyrants: the bill collectors, the taxman, bossmen, disloyal lovers, and all those that take more than they give.
I scurried in silence hurrying to balance the checkbook, as you upstairs silently photographed for me later a picture remitted in between the sheets, the frozen crease of our son's entry into the dreamstate that he, already fussing with maternal heritage, spat into the eyes of The Vulture, risking his life's meager earnings for The Trust of Morning. His undefined eyes, like a puppy's, peeked at you unopened, roiling with curiosity, demands and hunger, slowing then ceasing with the silent massage of your nightsong. He, only born, was unscented and escaped the lion's nose, resting in the dark savannah, convenient in the promise of his mother's returning belly.
So He sleeps in the protective cradle of God's grasp as we, giggling, contemplate, plan our Night's Urgencies. I throw away my hastily prepared illegible script, and watch you roll winning dice, pull down jackpots, and turn over countless cards of random Blackjack fortunes, your smile as wide as your arms, rejoicing in the impropriety of Lady Luck as we both peek into the obscene White Heat of Night you opened past sleepy unprepared third shift Casino Pit Bosses. With each winning hand I discover myself and cash in with the slow slipping fall of your modest satin. We, as Jazz, improvise. I find your melody, you dance to your new Conguero and his wandering Hands of Fire that release Sacrament to rhythm and rhyme. Judgment comes later, as innocence and lust survive yet another night awaiting the promised sins of tomorrow.
I remember Our sleeping Son you bore in pain I was unable to share. Late tears of joy do not count. My life I will spend in the grace of apology.
We will forgive Him of impossible expectations, though double-checking His breath. A sprinter's speed dies quickly. But those of us that run hard and long, voluntarily seeking marathons ambivalent to silent applause, challenging, badgering obstacles always through the distance, unhappy with same familiar horizons, bleeding from the hard way home, have a greater responsibility. Our proper souls are still sleepless, restless denying burial, uncomfortable without the risk of movement and motion. Our improper peers did not heed us, we could not free them, so we passed prematurely without the blessing of atonement. Our remains are millennium moist, self-preserved and still warm to the touch with dedication, poetry, disgust, sarcasm, dissatisfaction, unanswered questions, history undefined, and the apolpgy of unmet lovers just out of reach for an entire life's living. Buried and forgotten in impossible darkness we are still awash with curiosity, fearing hell because of impassivity and swallowed words that denied life not only to us, but to our better children alive only in memory, fearing heaven not because of what we have done, but for what we have not accomplished. We wll defend, teach and recognize our child's burden, but we will not bear it for him. We will show him those mountains and hope he follows..... trusting he also is one uncommonly without thirst.
Archeologists, those whose world is always too large, history's lonely dedicated Monks, record their voyeurs' discovery with impossibly dedicated meticulous script under the guarded stern imparetur of St Thomas Aquinas and His meticulous, groomed Gregorian Chanters.
They, Flatlanders and Mountaineers alike, united in the demand of their roots, scrape dust from my still angry and uncomfortable fossilized past..... my history unwilling still to accept the selfish static unrefined chaotic stern earth that I was forced unready to leave without my Camilla. My bones they easily carbon-date. No instruments measure my sadness.
But my joys, sorrows, successes and failures are so elusive....though not so much different than there's. That's the real truth I, wordless, hide from them. I am half my answer, they cannot hear.
Find my Camilla, and you will find the rest of me.... and you. Isn't that why you came?
Find my Camilla. Follow the memory of Santa Ana.
I remain inert as the dirt, air, oceans, and trees that demanded my premature ending of Journeys in the shadow of so many undefeated mountains. You nubile searchers, so few, my heart's aching humble comfort consorting with my son plead: I was not an answer, but a question....as He also will grieve for His son in same.
It's a shame paper is more brittle than bone.
It's a shame my Camilla, you cannot locate. She guards all your answers. We still exchange helpless secret laughter, carried by our first autumn dust I chanced upon by that Slow Hot Wind. California burns. Somewhere in that seasonal autumnal heat, fire, and dust....two souls dance without guilt, withhout regret.
Not machines.....only Innocents....only the young of heart...only those with Communion's wisdom....only the keen of hearing and scent... only those stirred in fake sleep with nightmares masquerading as dreams.... only those that open up a new book and smell it's fresh print before the read....only those unconcerned with the time it takes to conquest distance....only those reconciling their toil they recite by night's fire to their tribe and blood, boasting not only the quantity, but the meaning of their journey they refused to abandon empty-handed....only those that respect and hesitate the consequence of their hastily written unthoughtful words...only those that recognise that being cunning, meditative and smart is as sexy and as necessary as heavy muscles....only the repentant, those reformed ones no longer ashamed, who grew tired of sharing unanswered dried lips soothed with overnight Bourbon and reached out exchanging their tremble for the steady hand that was always there....only those that can begin to suspect the source of embarrassed surging first kisses....have a chance to find Our Camilla and her Biblical testaments etched in fading stone.
Are you good enough? And even if you find her, will you take the time to understand her, to decipher my Camilla....us??
Find my Camilla, find your future. Eve is so close....
But, patience, no shame, no grievance. Camilla, and I, are now at Peace. We were reborn as philosophers, musicians, teachers, lovers and writers, farmers and wine makers, carpenters, plumbers, inventors, stevedores, sculptors and drawers, invalids and athletes, anything and everything we imagned, released from the organic pressings of hunger and thirst. We were granted the time of a thousand star-births to edit our poems, manage our decisions, to refine our approaches, to make things right, to reach into the hearts of people to whom we gave thoughtless hurt, and to raise our belated clenched victory fists not for us, but for them.
Only you, the diggers with soft brushes and even softer hearts, and the other few keen and wise will imagine us, envy us, anticipating your painless future, as luck, time and faith finally granted us a renewing universe where mistaken decisions are retractable, and God in distraction, willing to acknowledge us, gave us a second chance finally waving away our mistakes, too busy editing, too upset with his new worlds' mistaken creations He must make right in His Own Image.
You, those diggers of time by your persistence will be granted your Rewards your cupped ears and fine eyes sought and recorded in the cold deadness of my silenced music and dried poetry you patiently struggled to find and reconstruct.
You do not need to find me in order to discover yourselves.
I am as happy for you as I am for our Camilla....and I.
Camilla, I shook your sleep then, your lust awake, giving you dreams that outlived you. You, as Woman never felt the burden, those premature contractions you experienced, my selfish weight I released to you at first sight, to share, to carry home in exchange for your heavy countenance I felt God ignoring that I lifted from you. I knew you would later accept this difference. I knew you would not even hinder in notice. I anticipated my confession I would later startle to you in in Trust. "And what burden was that you gave to me, my love, you would ask??....that premature echo of Rescue that rang in my ears even before the unopened door of your coffee shop.
I, a rapidly aging Man, a wanderer almost a vagrant, sadly consolidating his rusted future, a shopping cart of soiled survival articles, instinctual with nature and it's stern seasonal demands of necessity, a silent pessimist, a lonely beggar watching the finery of emotion bleeding through his hands, awaited your answer. I, an Officer lost from his regiment, but still a firm loyal soldier dutifully polishing his daily brass, a misplaced Highlander necessary with the cruel hunt, stilled in sniper's ambush, arose from from my camouflaged deceitful angle, rustled you, a slowly tarnishing angel, with a vision, trying desperately to snatch the Apple from your mouth.
Your smile, your open hand saved us both from The sulking Serpent who stared at the dropped fruit, unbitten.
How We Both gained God's Favor, blessing us with the Santa Anas!
I never liked coffee. I ordered it only because of you.
I never liked the Flatlands. I came there only because of you.
I never liked the heat. But that sudden hot wind carried your smell so into my realm.
I never shared my Kingdom.
For you, I renamed it.
Camilla: That was my last nickel. My last investment.
What a hunch it turned out to be, huh?
I have worked every day since then so that you can take your place among white woman, your high heels clicking as hard as theres upon soft forming pavement, hurrying home, hiding in wrinkled paper bags from those alabaster purient thieves, your pawn shop purchase of smuggled museum quality China Dishes Mandarins licked from.
Like an aphrodisiac, through our years, I watched your summer's impudent volume of black hair grow gray, long, sliding down my chest covering me with each welcome lustful season, keeping me warm, keeping me sinewy, keeping my hands alive, keeping a young man from becoming old, each day kicking him out of an easy bed demanding of him his Daily Run. We laid without cover, exchanging jokes, watching furious ice crystals melt beside our bed from our comic book laughter, your aged Silver Hair more precious than the phony spark of Hollywood's dyed Gold.
Our family's anonymity is spectacular. This they judge, kicking us into premature graves. But we were too strong, for once.
Our Mothers....Our final forgiveness. They slip us their smirking genuflect past warring priests.
Love Her without concern, one whispers.
Love Her with the fear of your silenced heartbeat the other shouts....and don't the both of you dare look back......
I run for perfection, trying to outrun God. I run from failure, chasing the Devil, knowing that as my entrance into heaven, I must look back, showing The Insignificant Beast my taunting angered lifetime victory snarl. I run mountains, not tracks.
And for that, I refuse to stop searching.
But for you, Camilla, I would have stopped, laughing with easy breath as I waited for you to catch up;
Because I know, even at your laboured risk, why you follow me!!
Why you risk the Seed...
You made love to me in your joust. I recognised your spear and accepted it with an easy startle, feeling not pain but provocation, instead glancing away the sad accepted fear of sleepless, dreamless alone nights, finally welcoming the Maiden Eros. I asked you at first glance, in imagined molest from across the room how you felt? "Fertile", you already whispered.
I tasted honey, not blood. I know no one ever did that to You, Our "Mayan Princess"....they were not man enough. Had they, if they were man enough, with such a stilled helpless prey in hand, would have not released you. They blinked, I stared, watching those prettier men stand motionless, stilled, cowering from you...you a dangerous wasp.... fly past them, you disgusted and incontent with all the ragtag temporary fields of fake flowers that lacked the capacity to plan the luster of next year's more brilliant amber bloom. I felt your curious wondering stilled wings resting, for once finally unafraid. You needed sleep, trust, invisible and undisturbed from so many unearned enemies. I held you as tightly as I could, and I shared your black and gold dreams.
"Don't be afraid, Arturo, you deny it, but you are a pretty thing worthy of a woman's memory", you assured in your pre-dreams. "Trust me, take off your glasses, ignore your unsure eyes and those new hectic winds that blow dust into your premature myopic focus. I will be your eyes. You think you are old, but I, older, your days my years, scarred with the unwanted battles of prey and predator, upon awakening, will share my warnings. You are my sounding. I am your vision. You can close your eyes then. I will take you with me to realize your guarded dreams, borne with the protected high safe vantage of my supersonic wings, beyond the consequence of reach of all our shared vicious slings and arrows. All I ask is that you share with me what you heard.".
"I need your slow deliberate contemplated thoughtful hand. I can dodge lightning, but not thunder."
"But you....you were always afraid to recognize enemies from friends you chance upon in you thoughtful innocent jog, more concerned with sunsets and sunrises than the deliberately placed vacant rock that sends you tumbling, removing teeth from skull, I will always warn you to whom you can trust".
"Arturo, yours is an easy contract. My signature has already dried..."
Camilla, I protected you for an afternoon's moment. You watched over me for a lifetime.
And even if the clouds obscured your jog, like a predator, I would have heard you long before your melting human footsteps.
Like a predator, I could have closed my eyes smelling the arrival of your.... Fragrant sweat....waiting confident, unhidden from your trusted seeking. For you, I left my unhidden trail.
You and your flesh would have not escaped me, the clouds hiding our union from all the little people on time clocks below.
And all those bored silent gods that were sifting through clouds with nothing to do would have been our Bridesmaids, Honour Guards, far beyond the unsettled dust of the Santa Anas.
This they would have done without asking,
