Max Michelson 

A RICH GENTLEMAN 
Your nostrils sniff the air, 
Your ears stand alert: Near you,
like wolves in the forest,
 Lurk other people's poverty and suffering; 
And though your heart is robust Tough,
 like the cheek of a country girl, 
You dare not trust it. 

A PETIT BOURGEOIS 
Sharp nails grow out from your fat fingers; 
Over your clean-shaven lip glimmers the moustache of a tom-cat.
 Your smiles are investments at a hundred per-cent. 
Yet one has only one life, one mouth, one stomach, 
and can take only one woman at a time; 
Also, when you were younger, before you knew,
 You foolishly allowed suffering to reach your heart. 
So your face sometimes contorts wistfully
 You use this sanctimoniously to deceive. 

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Michelson was a childhood immigrant to America from Lithuania and settled in Chicago, working as a furrier. Later, in 1920 he moved to Seattle, 'soon after his arrival there, a mental hospital had to be his refuge' and there he was to stay until he died, in obscurity, in 1953.