Edmund Skellings – Raving

Florida Tech April 16, 2015

Special guest post by Diane Newman

Evans Library is fortunate to have a special collection donated by Florida’s Poet Laureate Emeritus, Edmund Skellings. The collection contains Dr. Skellings’ life work, including literary letters, academic pursuits, published poetry, manuscripts, video and audio recordings, and computer generated animated poetry that provide researchers insight into a poet who used “high tech with a human touch”.

April is National Poetry Month, a time to renew interest in poetry. Here is a poem by Edmund Skellings that captures his flight of fantasy on a Florida porch:

Raving

This afternoon I’m raving sane
It comes and goes.
Ten feet away a lizard on the screen
Excites himself with sunlight
Suddenly, from his neck a bright red tiny sail
Mimics the sun
He tells the nearby jasmine shrub that he’s alive
I pick up my binoculars and zoom
Tyrannosaurus crash through Florida
And now he rears up on his great hind legs
(about him the smaller beasts stiffen and lay still)
I hold my breath. All our eyes are on him
Out of his throat a terrible cry
And then a huge red sail shouts his lust for sun.
Beyond the foliage an answering flash
And the great trampling of mango has begun.
I put my lenses down.
The cat walks oblivious by
The afternoon is once again humdrum
And I can let my breath out in a sigh.