Shouting Match in a whispering gallery

I think today,

To see tomorrow,

Listen close to yesterday.

Stifled tongues do stay unsung when music fades to silence.

The drummer’s drum keeps tempo, but gets smothered by the riots.

So sounds that match in amplitude, they cancel when they collide,

Every one is but an echo and in time will find demise.

Black and blue is dipped in red as bodies hit the floor.

Mics held up to rich folks, megaphones held by the poor.

Each picking up devices to amplify the rancor.

Posturing, endangered, when they're calling out in anger.

Think if they’re tall the prey will fall and bow down to their fear.

Think the world will spin around them if they pray it loud and clear.

This broken bit of reason, sending ghosts to Vietnam,

And it's what starts the wars at home then tries to keep the calm.

Am I the only one who knows?

You got to lean in close.

We're in a gallery of whispers.

A quiet space beneath a dome where volume ain't a factor.

Where distance from the center says how sound inside will scatter.

The waves beneath ellipses don't get back to where they came from

They bounce one time and crash down with the tremble of a bass drum.

Symmetrical but opposite the spot they got created,

Raining unto those in cloudy places death has fated.

The center is anomalous -- there power holds itself.

It can’t escape the bulls-eye reflecting white with wealth.

Hear how the boys in Washington grow louder with each season.

So loyal to their voices they mistake your truth for treason.

'Cause when they speak the speech goes up and drops on their own ears,

Where things are fine, the young don’t die, and no one needs to hear.

I think today,

To see tomorrow,

Listen close to yesterday.

When the lowly and the lonely got pushed out to the edges.

Started burning to get noticed like Yahweh and his hedges.

Clamoring invective under street signs with their neighbors.

Hoping He would hear their pleas and send them one more savior.

Could save of a lot of sinning if we moved before we shouted.

Align just at the distance where the echoes will be counted.

If the center stepped outside to whisper truths onto the margins,

They'd hear them all decry the false, begging life and living pardons.

Physicians heal a bullet wound but power goes to pastors.

When bloodstreams run along the street, search the soul for answers.

So to quiet down a shouting match in a gallery of whispers,

Must keep real low to dam the flow, or streams turn into rivers.

Now I could never tell apart mistakes from old regrets.

But mama do I know that no one heeds an empty threat.

A change is gonna come when we walk and then we listen.

Acoustics don't submit to posture; only to position.

I think today,

To see tomorrow,

Listen close to yesterday.

So am I the only one who knows?

You've got to lean in close.

We’re in a gallery of whispers.

I find the phenomenon of the 'whispering gallery' fascinating. If you're unfamiliar, learn about it here.