Go down to Creek Road, get drunk on free beer,
Walk through Greenwich Park, shoot a fucking deer
Venison’s better than cheap minced beef pies
Share surplus with neighbours, what a surprise

Oh the things that we do when we are poor

Take rod to river, hook stale bread on,
Cast into slipstream, then pull out a swan
Play bird as it flys up high in the sky
Then kill it and pluck it, try not to cry,
To roast in oven cut swan into four
One more of the things we do, when we’re poor.

Go down Tesco’s fill up trolley and pay
Go out to friends car, stack shopping away
Go round aisles again load exactly the same,
Plus one pack of brillo, forgotten, you claim
With first bill in hand you’ve already paid
Thus shopping’s half price, good game that, well played.

In desperate days we ignore the law,
Oh the things that are done when we are poor.

Harry Rogers, In the Yellow Room, 23rd April, 2020.