I remember his name and features

from my brief matchbox phase

that sparked up and fizzled out

like so many others. Phillumeny,

yes, that’s the word. Cutting out the labels, 

I glued them to homemade charts.

 

When Bryant and May raised his profile

he couldn’t have been more famous,

if he had stared from banknotes.

On a cheap box of lucifers

– the white cliffs at his back –

his pose is muscular, relaxed.

 

In an age when maps were

splotched in red and folding stuff

was no concern of any working man,

he seemed such a British hero,

the first one to swim the moat

that maintains la différence.

 

And sensing that achievement

ends up as commonplace,

he moved on to stunts that paid

– like a man surprising you

by what he’ll do for bets – aware

that easy money soon evaporates.

 

Afloat in a tank for days on end,

watching clouds, did he see the future –

minor celebrities desperate

‘to give something back ‘ or even you

and I, greased up for charity

and ticking off our bucket list?

 

His style was never flashy.

Dour and dogged wins the race.

Burnt out and broke, his final plunge

was madness. Spat out by a torrent

beneath Niagara Falls, his plot

in Oakwood is called ‘The Stranger’s Rest’.