By Mario Flecha

We have the strange privilege of having two collaborators who go by exactly the same name. There is our dear north London friend but there is also another Mario Flecha, a Brasilian writer who lives in Alberta, Canada. Here are eleven haiku by him to soothe those rough hours that always appear when the day breaks down with weight of time

Winter Sonata

Moonlight on snow.
The wings of a dead moth.
Dry leaves in the cold breeze

Nothing new in the news

The same old samsara.
Ephemeral revolution of dark clouds out of volcanic depths of time
Reality is a debatable matter.

The Moth

After all one’s journey a line is traced A to Z Is it a Where? Is it a What? Can you tell me? Is it a dot? Or just a pause in the flight of that moth?


The poet is a pretender

The poet is a pretender,
doesn’t learn,
doesn’t remember
Just pretends what really is.

Churchill’s leaves

Leaves running
through the steelness of Churchill Square.
Peeled petals of broken hearts sitting
by Churchill’s stare.

Windmill

After all,
all left is the sound of the air being
cut
by the windmill’s blades.

Among Stones

Running among stones a creek plays
music in my heart

Our Mystery

A name reveals the skin of our mystery.
It is a piece of the puzzle.

Scattered Oracle

I lie on words like scattered cards of an oracle laid and never played,
while the city runs awoken laying its trades of lies.

Ashes’ Fire

Like ashes awakening from a final sleep
a friendly wind blowing softly
lights the fire underneath

Eyes Wide Shut

Listen, with eyes wide shut; snow flakes dripping the sound in a dark street, morning the day.


Mario Flecha is from Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, and has been living in Alberta, Canada, since 2001. He has published five poetry books =one of them a national prize- plus a collection of short stories some of which have appeared in anthologies of contemporary Brasilian writing.