Frustrations of an Unpublished Writer

I'm eager
impatient even
I want to get out there
I want to get out of here

It's cramped in this room
with papers scattered across the floor
piled up in mountainous heaps
with the course of my pacings
worn deep into the floor
This is the landscape of my imaginings and reasoning
and frustrations
and late-at-night procrastination

A dozen projects wait patiently
for my wandering attention
They plead silently for theirs lives
awaiting my decision
or confirmed forgetfulness
They wait to be completed
or to be edited with second and third and fourth thoughts
their paragraphs shifted and cut up and stretched in every conceivable way
their theses reconsidered and reconstructed
They fear to be hopelessly flawed
to be the products of misinformation or a passing fancy
or a bloated ego trying to impress or shock anyone who takes the time to read him
which is hopefully no one

Outlines are stacked over at the corner of the desk
one for each mess of letters cluttered around the room
and then some
This one has seen a thousand revisions
each informed by a new discovery or epiphany or scholar
yet only two chapters are actually written
This other one has been turned over and studied and delighted each day in my mind
but not so much as a sentence of it has actually been written
This one is almost complete
the whole thing's been written out
but it needs to be rewritten at least once more
and it is perhaps too grand
It's broad and complex and that's why I was able to fnish it
and that's also why it can't be the first one published
This one was an afterthought
but it might not be so bad
I was planning on essays
treatises and the like
I wanted to write theology
and delve openly and thoroughly
into the deepest questions of eternity
and humanity
and morality
Then I was hit over the head
with an unwritten novel
and then struck again for good measure
So I started to write a story
and made plans
So He struck against my skull once more
with a few poets this time
and wrecked my plans once more

I want to get out there
I want to break out of this room
this cramped little space
with it's paper mountains
and well-worn valleys
But not yet
No matter how eager I am
It's just not time yet
So I'll wait
And when He says it's time
I'll look up and see
that the walls fell over