Cathy Bryant worked as a life model, civil servant and childminder before becoming a professional writer. She has won 22 literary awards, including the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Prize and the Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest, and her work has appeared in over 200 publications. Cathy's books  are 'Contains Strong Language and Scenes of a Sexual Nature' and 'Look at All the Women' (poetry), 'How to Win Writing Competitions' (nonfiction)  and 'Pride & Regicide - a Mary Bennet Mystery' (a novel). See her listings for cash-strapped writers at www.compsandcalls.com , updated on the first of every month. Cathy lives in Cheshire, UK.

                        The Huge Paws of Country Fog 


​
It hunts in packs, unseen until it roars
down the hillside, swallows you and kills you.

Today it ate us and the car and all
we could see was a fur of verge and grey
before us.

We did actually scream as oily paws
of panther-black fog tumbled over the road,
alive and young and fierce 
against the immovable wall of paler mist.
It is unquestionably a living thing.

The car inched forward, terrified, crawling
- we had to speak in soothing voices,
then just touch it with the whip -
whimpering down Winnats Pass, glacier gorge,
to the hopeful village.

We knew it was there all the time,
the place of safety, with kettles
and lights and known roads.
Muffling our minds and scratching our eyes, 
though, the fog does not go, not quite
and its feet are not small, but huge
and deadly, until the sunshine comes,
if it does.

Cathy Bryant worked as a life model, civil servant and childminder before becoming a professional writer. She has won 22 literary awards, including the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Prize and the Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest, and her work has appeared in over 200 publications. Cathy's books  are 'Contains Strong Language and Scenes of a Sexual Nature' and 'Look at All the Women' (poetry), 'How to Win Writing Competitions' (nonfiction)  and 'Pride & Regicide - a Mary Bennet Mystery' (a novel). See her listings for cash-strapped writers atwww.compsandcalls.com , updated on the first of every month. Cathy lives in Cheshire, UK. 

Greyway by Cathy Bryant
​
(a poem of the North of England)

A grey day, a misty, hazy day
as we follow the skeins of geese
heading south on the motorway.
'White Rose County'
'Brontë Country'
A break in the gloom, and geometric shafts
of sunlight sink through clouds.
The mucky god of industry beams
down on his chosen, on slag heaps
stepped and greening.
Motorway forks on to Sheffield, engineered, proud. 
Brown fields, white seagulls.
Green meadows, black crows.
Autumn is sniffing around.
Swallows go with us, and more geese,
flying, fleeing to cheat the frosts
nipping at their feet.
A squashed anonymous fur shape in the fast lane
won't see winter.
Faint nausea, then it's forgotten.
Tibshelf. Heanor. THE SOUTH.
Robin Hood County.
Fish signs on a blood-red Fiesta.
Sudden bodies of grave grey water,
golds and crimsons where the trees have grown
their own personal sunsets, mourned
by spotting tears of rain.
Electronic signs say 'queue' and then 'END'
amid balding trees by the hard shoulder.