What kind of life
does a six-figure income
get these days?
You could only have one yacht,
a half a dozen houses,
and a lonely private jet.

How can you live on such a sum?
The villa staff need paying.
Thank god for the portfolio!
With children on the payroll
you can barely make ends meet.

You call this an existence?
I must insist you stop and think:
blink an eye and you could find
it all come crashing down.
Club membership, the private school,
Melissa keeps a pony.
The maintenance on the swimming pool
would make a grown man weep.

You can’t draw any benefits,
(a food bank’s off the cards,)
you’d wait years on the NHS,
the stress alone could kill you.
A challenge then, if you should doubt
the hardships, with so much to lose.
I dare say you won’t last a week
to walk here in my shoes.

Born in California, raised on the Vietnam protests, Gerda Pickin tries to keep the voice of angry reason alive from her Cumberland home.