[return to Contents Page]

Diana Webb

Biography 1

Turner's boyhood stroll –
rough surfaces
of takeaway serviettes

His footsteps echo along these pavements just a few scissor snips and spans from his home in the barber's shop at the hub of the old fruit flower and vegetable market, through its litter of crates, ferment of smells to his place of study where the Thames flows by on its way to the Essex Coastline.

blue sky
scraped
by inland gulls' cry

yelp
of a small white dog
splashes through

squashed tomato
blushes its pips
across a paving stone

The buildings are mainly fast food outlets now. Gourmer Burger, Wagamama, Eat. Gold and Scarlet of a statue of the Sacred Heart in the porch of a church. A pub with luminous lime green table tops (Born in a House on this Site).

space between streets
thistle seeds
brush away