Bad Poetry: Step On Back

Step forward
Step back
Back down
Back off
Off with the volume
Off with the hands
Hands in your pockets
Hands down
Down the pressure
Down the scale
Scale back 
Scale exercise
Exercise good will
Exercise patience
Patience is a virtue
Patience will prevail
Prevail over impulse
Prevail over emotion
Emotion misplaced is
Emotion wasted
Wasted time
Wasted effort
Effort to impress
Effort to please
Please sit down
Please remain calm
Calm your heart rate
Calm your ego
Ego locks horns
Ego fouls up
Up to Heaven
Up to you
You were too close
You step away now
Now you can be seen
Now you can be heard
Heard speaking your truth
Heard making sense
Sense of boundaries
Sense of respect
Respect for self
Respect for the other
Other created to be
Other than you are
Are not offending
Are stepping back
Back off from conflict
Back with a quick step
Step
Back

On Friday the Poets & Storytellers United posted a good prompt; I just kept not thinking of poems to write about it. When this happens, one way to shake something out of the writing brain is...

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The Blitz Poem, a poetry form created by Robert Keim.

This form of poetry is a stream of short phrases and images with repetition and rapid flow.

Begin with one short phrase, it can be a cliché. Begin the next line with another phrase that begins with the same first word as line 1. The first 48 lines should be short, but at least two words.

The third and fourth lines are phrases that begin with the last word of the 2nd phrase, the 5th and 6th lines begin with the last word of the 4th line, and so on, continuing, with each subsequent pair beginning with the last word of the line above them, which establishes a pattern of repetition.

Continue for 48 total lines with this pattern, And then the last two lines repeat the last word of line 48, then the last word of line 47.

The title must be only three words, with some sort of preposition or conjunction joining the first word from the third line to the first word from the 47th line, in that order.

There should be no punctuation. When reading a BLITZ, it is read very quickly, pausing only to breathe.

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Sometimes the most important step we can take is a step back. A support-group-for-extroverts culture may have taught us to stand too close, ask too many questions, push too hard. Living/working with cats is a good corrective: When you feel as if you're meeting resistance, back off and give the cat time to think things over. This can help resolve conflicts with humans, too.