I came out with my hands bleeding on the roof terrace
It was raining bright detonations in the bottomless sky
I wiped myself with my sleeve – I searched in the night
The clue to our survival tomorrow

But the sky was empty. I did nothing but cry
While from the sky a staircase of thoughts unfolded
That swirled in my soul like a fortress
I got up like a madman, it was raining. I brandished my fist like a police flashing light on the night

And I promised the clouds that carried my memories of happiness
That I would be the one to finally give God a shape
With my head buried in the earth, while men fell like burnt logs
On the burnt lawns, in the middle of the children who were screaming,

My forehead against the wet earth, my eyes revolted, and my soul contemplating the void
I invented God
For seven days, I gave him human form.
Seven days – This became the ambition, the outcome of my whole life

On the first day, I took a wet newspaper from my pocket
And made an imaginary telescope to observe the moon
With my eyes closed I can still see it laughing at my quest
My brother joined me on the terrace and we embraced

The second day, I took him to find our parents
Across the country at war
And to forge a soul for God
I picked a flower that was drying under the grill of the silent sky

On the third day, I left my brother
In front of our grandparents’ house; our boat
Had reached a village safe and sound – and to make God weep,
I voluntarily cut my hand and plunged it into the black river of our blood

On the fourth day, my heart broken with hope
I returned to our city alone and with bent back,
All ambition had left me, I did not work
And I fell asleep like a dog in the gutter

It was still raining on my dirty face, when on the fifth day
For God to have a heart at last,
I tore mine out and with it all hope
To see again the smile of the one I once loved

And whose house next to ours was now
Only a heap of ashes which the birds of passage used
To blacken their feathers and deceive the sun
Who took them for his shadow and stopped burning them

On the sixth day of my company
God had a heart, a soul, tears
But what was he like?
I had failed to give him a figure and a look

The one I once loved had the radiance of a star
Eyes shining like a sunny life
Long hair and she danced without worrying about the void
That threatens the human being at every turn of their lives;

The one I loved once had the lightness of a leaf
And as she fell she bent me like a tree in a storm
I don’t know how old I am, if I am still alive
I only have her memory in my mind

So on the sixth day when I closed my eyes
I gave God the smile of a woman
The long lashes of the one I loved
And joined the clouds she once dispelled in my heart

On the seventh day of my improbable creation,
God had a heart, a soul, a body; even tears
I came out of my house partly destroyed by the war
I picked up a notebook from the rubble

I wrote this poem with carnal ink
I copied it as long as my fingers could hold the pen,
Then I ran to the fields and roads
I distributed my poetry to the survivors

Those who could read smiled,
Did they believe that a God had finally taken over the sky?
Did they know that I had only created a little versified music
To escape the emptiness left by the fighting?

If they did not believe me – they pretended to
I became their herald on this bloody earth:
A poet – I live in a world without sky, that I populate with my words
I live in a world without God, I mythologize the empty cosmos

The roads have been rebuilt, the valleys have bloomed again
The children have learned new songs, my house
I rebuilt it with my hands, reciting ancient poems to myself
In a world without God that men destroy