close to the bone vs poor as a church mouse

close to the bone

adj

  • Destitute. 

  • Penetrating and relatable, to the point of causing discomfort. 

poor as a church mouse

adj

  • Very poor, to the point of starving or begging; utterly destitute. 

How often have the words close to the bone and poor as a church mouse occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )