Battle or Build? [Poem]

"Battle or Build?" is one of the poems featured in my upcoming poetry book, "Born Anew". Sign up to my Substack to be notified when my book is available: https://tomshawwritings.substack.com/

Music: Jangwa - A Rainbow In The Sewers
https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Dilating_Times/cycles-trax-vol-ii-singles/a-rainbow-in-the-sewers/

Artwork made with AI using Canva.

"Battle or Build?" is also available as a physical print from my shop: https://tom-shaw.uk/shop/

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Transcript:

Are you here to wage a battle
or are you here to help me build?
Did you bring your sharpest weapons
or tools to forge and gold to gild?
Did you come to compete with me,
or did you come to collaborate?
For I do not want to fight against you,
instead unite as we head to our fate.

See, there are bigger threats in life
than my character assassinating yours.
Food is poison, medicine is death,
neighbours are strangers and work is chores.
Nature is withered, living is robotic,
the news is lying and the lies are truth.
Right now, all’s the wrong way round.
So what use is giving me a missing tooth?

I’m not here to wage a battle,
I am here to help you build.
I choose to put my axe to wood
and hoe to earth so fields are tilled.
I plant my seeds with ample space
and feed them water, not the blood
of all the foes I wished to slay
who could have been my closest bud.
Then I watch the flowers bloom -
flourish in to being their own.
I make the space I want to inhabit
and somewhere you can say you’ve known.

So are you here to wage a battle,
or are you here to help me build?

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Find more of Tom's work at: tom-shaw.uk