Metamorphosis and Realization

[Gestalt222]

Priests and rabbis with synaptic disabilities;
they are suspended in thoughts unchanging.
They coast(coasting) through life on the hearts and minds
of a devoted clergy.
They haunt our dreams and private prayers
with the ever looming consequence
of condemnation everlasting.(everlasting condemnation)

Yet when these tales, so(omit) depicted upon dreamscape clouds,
are dispelled by the ever guiding hand(s) of our curious gods,
our desires to live life unbound by fear, we begin
to see just(omit) how little
we really know.

Must our first impulse and action be to scramble for the easy answers?
Perhaps first entertaining, pondering, and debating these proverbs
before
we submit ourselves to the whims of any spiritual conscription
could save us from
wasting our time.(omit latter 2 lines)

What if we could look beyond the skeletons in parishioner's robes
that shuffle along the gothic hallways of our long and sleepless nights,
and see the corner they want to back you into? Your fear of death,
of letting the dead truly lie,
hem(ming) you in on every side.

Perhaps, if we can break out from these frightful personal prisons,
one can learn to sing songs of love, life, and the living
without relying on another's hand to guide them.
If only we sought the amiable path of self-acceptance
and coexistence
that leaves us free from self-loathing and
these surreal caricatures of eternity.

Those phantasmagorical scenes that adorn the winding corridors
that I walk on sleepless nights.
When I set off in total silence to gain audience with myself.
When did it begin to feel like I had to shout to be heard
in my own mind? For my thoughts were discordant at best
when fear was tending my thoughts.

It took me too many years to understand what my true self had always known,
because the lessons of priests and rabbis;
all of them pretenders to the throne;
warred for my attention.
I believe they died
the same way they lived.

Sleeping.

My suggestions are mostly to shorten lines, make them read smoother. It's a great poem with a great message and great imagery, a subject I have often talked about with my atheist friend.