A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

  “The Ones Who Stay” They clap the loudest when the room is full, Their laughter timed to match the crowd. They speak in echoes, not in truth— A friendship built on being seen, not known. They tag your name in borrowed light, A gesture made for watching eyes. But when the silence stretches long, Their presence fades, rehearsed and thin. Then there are the ones who stay. No spotlight, no applause required. They know your rituals—how you stir your tea, The way you pause before you speak. They don’t perform your pain, they hold it. Not to fix, but to witness. They show up in the quiet hours, When grief is not poetic, just heavy. They remember the stories you forgot, The jacket tossed backstage, the missed cue. They lift you—not for spectacle, But because you asked, or didn’t have to. So let the crowd disperse. Let the stage go dark. The ones who stay will still be there— Unscripted, unshaken, real.  

© 2024 Horse Mesa Press   Review: Haiku for the Midnight Hour by Dawn Pisturino Dawn Pisturino’s Haiku for the Midnight Hour takes the delicate form of haiku and twists it into something eerie and evocative. These brief verses, though spare in language, pulse with dread—ghosts, shadows, and the chill of empty spaces fill the page. It’s poetry for when the lights go out and you start noticing things you wish you hadn't. She plays with juxtaposition: traditional nature imagery rubbing against spectral unease. The result is a collection that’s as unsettling as it is elegant—like overhearing a whisper in the dark, only to realize it came from nowhere. This isn’t horror that screams; it lingers. Perfect for lovers of Halloween ambience, gothic moods, or anyone who enjoys finding beauty in the quiet spaces between fear and fascination. Here’s a poignant excerpt from Haiku for the Midnight Hour that captures the haunting elegance of Pisturino’s style: whispers through the tre...

© 2025 Alex Diaz-Granados. Cover designed for the Kindle edition by Juan Carlos Hernandez   “Cassette Tape Years” For Jim, for Marty, for Maddie—echoes in two keys In corridors of sunlit youth, where voices trembled into song, a boy with history in his eyes loved a note too fragile to belong. The Winter Concert, velvet sound— a Schubert prayer, Ave Maria— he watched the solo fall like snow while silence held what words could be. A letter passed with trembling hands, final bells and summer haze— what he could not speak aloud hid in tape reels and school hallways. Seventeen years and northern skies, chalk and paper, wounded grace— the past returns in piano chords, her eyes: familiar, Marty’s face. Columbia’s towers weigh him down with echoes of Miguel’s despair, but Maddie’s hands across the keys remind him love still lingers there. And in the fire of hurt and fight, the scholar bleeds, the teacher bends— yet healing comes in quiet tones when letters ri...

The author in 2020   “Some Loves Don’t Ask”: A Poem in Three Movements Some moments don’t belong to the past so much as they echo quietly in the present—fragments of kindness, memory, and presence that resist the erosion of time. As I prepare to share Comings and Goings: The Art of Being Seen , I’ve been thinking about the spaces between stories—the ones that never become chapters, but shape the emotional weight of everything that follows. The poem below isn’t part of the short story, but it shares its emotional DNA. It’s a reflection on encounters that didn’t last, but mattered. I hope it finds you in a quiet moment.   The Boy She Loved for One Night She’s older now— not by much, but enough that the past feels more like a country she left than one she was exiled from. At a shelf she wasn’t seeking, his name appears— spine out, serifed, tucked between authors she almost recognizes. Garraty. A flicker. A room. A song dressed in Beethoven’s longing. ...

  Photo by the Author Winter's arctic blasts Invade the balmy tropics; Floridians go, "Brr!"

Image Credit: Pixabay   Autumn's greyish light Bathing dimly-lit writing area Mind blown by haikus. To read my cycle of haikus with a specific theme, visit my WordPress blog, A Certain Point of View, Too. Here are the first four: Image Credit: Pixabay School, 1972: Haiku #1 School, 1972: Haiku #2 School, 1972: Haiku #3 School, 1972: Haiku #4 Image Credit: Pixabay If you want to know the real-life inspiration for the haikus: I refer you to: Tempus Fugit: Remembering Cheryl T. – 50 Years Later, Part the First Tempus Fugit: Remembering Cheryl T. – 50 Years Later, Part the Second Tempus Fugit: Remembering Cheryl T- 50 Years Later, Part the Third Image Credit: Pixabay