Kate Ludlow's poetry has been published in university magazines, poetry magazines on line and in a volume or encyclopedia style of Australian poetry released nationally. Kate says, "I have also won several competitions in Brisbane. I am a 3rd year Journalism student at Queensland's University of Technology. I am looking to forward my education with a degree of psychology at the completion of my journalism degree. I am a 21 years of age and my goal is to study psychology and travel. My personal philosophy is; 'do not stress or allow conservatism to strangle life'.

The Wave of Relief The wave of relief that never came I swam out waving to you, You only turned away My hero became the violin string at my throat. The villain in my darkened stairwell I was in the back yard my skirt short Running from the spotlight It's not pride like confetti this time, Only pain Only a blackness I invented, knitted as a garment An hour before show time. I looked out of our window your arms About my shoulders. I was willing to shut the glass, Silent in my longing forever The others too foreign and oozing in their Experience. I dreamt of another man, who knew it was you It was you the whole time Waiting for that wave of relief.

Day

I stood as if in silent prayer, stock-still
I wanted no ripple to spoil this perfect
spillage on the day,
A huge man hungry rainbow slick,
A blob on the horizon, a melting film,
A picture of raw, psychedelic heat

It eats at the mountains
The skies jowls sag with the strain
of this daily torment of day
It cannot hold to it much longer,
This eternal bite of colour

Insect like in its movements,
the day shuffled past
100 legs skimming past like grand skirts
Sweeping up the wreckage,
storing it for tomorrow and
the next in tipped over barrels

The day spreads out like magic
Opening as a fan over a shy smile
A desert without sand, marooning over and over
An endless blanket, a cherished, recycled oyster

I stand stock still and raise my head
at its familiar fingers over my body,
I pray flower like and open.

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When We Danced

Battered at with angels and shadows
I knew enough to know your name
Took 2 years of my life and disappeared
An heiress of words
And yet you meant everything
Drank me for all Ii was worth
A well dried at the back of my throat
So I used bile.
I ate away myself, my pride
This large, swollen shell
No pearl, no pearl, no pearl
No pearl - only stones to throw
And a million plate windows
I see you, there behind the tree
Poking out your tongue and dancing away
Pan like
I see you there, lying on my bed
Angelic with twisted wire
You had me with your cruelty
You had this Helga and spat out the pips
You never from the left,
Never on the left
When we danced I was always the man.

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