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"Under One Roof: Poems" by Eric Pfeiffer

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Publisher's Description:
Under One Roof: Poems, by Eric Pfeiffer
     
Insightful, lyric poetry, touching on many aspects of the human experience. A real treasure. To purchase a copy of "Under One Roof" go to 
http://www.amazon.com/Under-One-Roof-Eric-Pfeiffer/dp/0557633982 For a signed copy of the book e-mail us at epfeiffe@health.usf.edu


Reviews:
Thoughtful and important poems, September 13, 2010

Under One Roof, a collection of thoughtful poems by physician-poet Eric Pfeiffer, represents personal observations and experiences during his lifetime. PfeLiffer's skillful use of language, concise phrasing, and extraordinary sensitivity demonstrate a keen awareness of details and sounds that portrays a thoroughly examined life.

His reflections focus on a cat, oranges on a blue plate, an easy trotting bear ("clumsy, pleasure-seeking beast"), but also, most poignantly, on parents, forgetting and remembering. The ordinary becomes complex and compelling. Those that suggest medical and relationship complexities associated with the human journey are presented with emotional neutrality. Readers' minds are ensnared. Lois L. Nixon, PhD.





A Life Lived in Poetry, August 8, 2010
By 
George Wolff, PhD.

Here is a beautiful book of poems, ones that draw together under one roof the experiences of a lifetime. The first of the four sections offers poems of a young man, poems about being young and learning to adjust to a not-always-friendly world, but in each poem the speaker's undeniable strength lies just beneath the surface. Then comes a section of poems about love, poems that once again show strength but this time the strength to meet "the shortfalls of love." Many of these are finely observed, captured like sketches in a clean, concise style. The third of the four thematic groups, "Naming the Colors," is to my mind the strongest group and may perhaps be described as poems written from a place of achievement. The poet is still actively engaged but no longer struggles with the difficulties of adjustment or the cross-currents of love. The poems in the closing group are more detached, more literary, less personal than those of the preceding three groups. The opening line of the first poem in this section captures the unifying theme--"Forgetting, remembering." In each of the four groups as in the book as a whole, there is wonderful variety in unity. An old mentor was right when he said to the young doctor, "You have the gift,/you are a poet."



Sample Poems:


Waiting  

I’ve waited for the moon

to come closer, to be

cradled in my arms.

 

I’ve waited for the rain

in a dry summer, the kingfisher

to return in the fall.

 

I’ve waited months and years

for orchids to burst

into bloom.

 

I’ve waited for long flights

to be over, and for my patients’

last breath.

 

Often I’ve waited

for you to come

into my room. 

Everybody waits.


 
Endings Are Beginnings                           

 
Today I saw my final patient.

Fifty years ago I saw my first.

What did I feel? Triumph?

Sadness? Emptiness?

Only this:

One door closes,

one door opens.

Endings are beginnings.

I begin again:

A whole generation left to live,

failure ruled out by definition,

all possibilities are open,

nothing more to prove.

I get in my car and drive home.

Rain is starting to fall.

Today I saw my final patient.

My dog welcomes me just the same.




Questions 

I never want to be

a part of nothing. I want to be

a force to be reckoned with,

a yellow strand of hair.

It is not enough

to be well known,

listed in Who’s Who, or in

Who Gives a Damn.

Instead,

these are the questions:

Do you still love me?

When will you be home?



Before All Time Expires


At sixty-six I am no longer

daring, dashing, in command.

I’m shorter now in stature,

short on time. Old age

beckons like the sea:

Come in, come in!

But I say No,

I am not finished.

I still want to journey

to the center of the earth,

and to the center of your heart.

I want to atone

shortfalls of love

that marred my way,

to practice love like a religion,

worshiping you and you and you.

But most of all I want to burn

brightly in the fire of now,

with mind clear as a bell,

with laughter and desire,

before all time expires.






 

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