APRILIA ZANK

 

APRILA ZANK

 

Daily Heroes

 

daily heroes

don't carry guns

they carry seeds of melancholia

in the depth of their skull

and the dreariness of the world

on anonymous shoulders

 

they carve bridges

from night to day

in the adamant rocks

of deceptive redoubts

and fill shells of dreams

with fake recollections

pressed into the roundness

of colourful pills

 

daily heroes

don't wear decorations

they wear punctures

on truncated skin

and live on prescriptions

for man-made heavens

with hard to pronounce

archangel names

 

How To Become

The Inventor Of Your Dreams

Homage To Nikola Tesla

 

in the mountainous scenery

of the small village of Smiljan

nobody dreamt of the summit

a little boy born there would attain

reaching out for his dreams

 

gifted with his ancestors' wisdom

kindled by his mother's tales

and his father's sermons,

open to the wonders of the world

and to the treasures of science

the boy, the young man, the grown-up

would toil and strive

to decipher the laws of energy and matter

to unlock the black box of knowledge

to get to the core of the universe

 

his dreams were the outburst

of his mind and heart alike

for he had the vision

of man freed from darkness

from ignorance and fear

and the equations of his mind

were devoted to peace in the world

and to the enlightenment of mankind

 

 

Betting On The New Year

 

the new year's

just around the corner

and the Croupier

sniggers in my ear

faites vos jeux, madame,

faites vos jeux

but I'm no gambler

lack the vision

of how the wheel spins

or if my fortune lies

in red or black

in grey or purple

or in the infinite blue

of heaven –

nowhere a hint

of what I will

or I can

or I must

and, anyway,

one has to hurry

time and tide wait for no man

or woman

I have to make my choice

place my haphazard bet

on even or odds

before the Croupier yells

rien ne va plus

 

APRILIA ZANK

 

Dr. APRILIA ZANK is a lecturer for Creative Writing and Translation Theory from Germany. She received her PhD degree in Literature and Psycholinguistics for her thesis THE WORD IN THE WORD Literary Text Reception and Linguistic Relativity, from the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, where she started her academic career as a lecturer. She is also a poet, a translator and the editor of two anthologies: the English–German anthology poetry tREnD Eine englisch-deutsche Anthologie zeitgenössischer Lyrik, LIT Verlag, Germany, 2010, and the anthology POETS IN PERSON at the Glassblower (Indigo Dreams Publishing, U.K., 2014). She writes verse in English and German, and was awarded a prize at the “Vera Piller” Poetry Contest in Zurich. Her poetry collection, TERMINUS ARCADIA, was 2nd Place Winner at the Twowolvz Press Poetry Chapbook Contest 2013 (U.K.). BAREFOOT TO ARCADIA, her collection of poems translated in Telugu by the eminent Indian poet and translator Dr. L. S. R. Prasad. was launched as a bilingual book in 2018 in Hyderabad, India. Her Beat poetry collection READING THE SIGNS was published in the U.S.A. in 2019. Aprilia has received wide recognition in both western and eastern countries for her merits and achievements. She is active in many literary and artistic groups in cooperative projects with poets and artists around the world, a frequent judge in poetry and photography competitions, and a member of the editorial boards of advisors of prestigious literary platforms such as Our Poetry Archive (OPA), Sahitya Anand Literary Journal and Athena, Journal on Humanities and Social Sciences. In 2018, she was awarded the title “Dr. Aprilia Zank – Germany Beat Poet Laureate – Lifetime”, by the National Beat Poetry Foundation (U.S.A.). Aprilia is also a passionate photographer. Many of her images are prize winners and have been selected for poetry book