Poet: Mindy Nettifee, Portland, OR
Small Doggies Single Poem Feature #9: Mindy Nettifee, Portland, OR
+++
Conquistadores
The apartment building was home to at least three Hispanic families,
two prostitutes, a diabetic pimp, and an ex-Navy cartographer before
being added as a dodgy investment to some real estate portfolio,
getting a fresh coat of caramel paint, some terracotta tile and a rent hike
so sudden you could see flashes of sorry soul behind the curtains of
the landlord’s bathrobe. The cartographer survived the push.
As did the angry Russian couple on the second floor. They have the kind
of imported vodka, live wire arguments and hot resentment and that pickle
what’s left of your organs. Ghettoize, gentrify, whatever, they’ll be here,
waging their private war with the roaches and the plumbing, spiting God.
It’s a special kind of gentrification, the influx of hipster alcoholics.
It doesn’t increase the property value or tasteful window treatments;
it won’t get the sidewalks and streets repaved or make the neighborhood
look friendly to the kind of people that have that sort of power in
the high beams of their smiles. If you’re trying to make a profit, you take
what vanguard you can get I guess, even if they’re scraping amps up
the hallway stairs at three in the morning, blighting the only five square feet
of landscaping with the crushed butts of American Spirits, throwing raging
Tuesday night tar roof top parties they don’t even enjoy. Reverse Gatsby’s.
I was the first white girl in the building, and it’s no wonder they all glared.
Poverty apologizes to no one, even when it’s filled with regret. I was incredibly
sad to see the exotic dancer with the four-year-old boy go. That kid had
eyelashes so long winks camped out there for weeks; so many gold teeth
in his mouth he grinned like a Spanish galleon. And then came the day
I realized the older gay man in number six had gone. I know he was the one
that would open the security gate for the meth heads that congregated
in the basement laundry. And more than once I’d had to cut him free
of duct tape after they robbed him blind. But there was some spirit about him,
swaggering down the streets like he’d never lost his youth, popping Viagra
like exclamation points. He was a walking cursing talisman for the dilapidated,
a mascot for dirt and decay and the raw beauty that looks like rebellion but isn’t.
It wasn’t the same after he left. He made this whole damn place feel like
a New World.
+++
Mindy Nettifee is the author of Sleepyhead Assassins (Moon Tide Press) and Rise of the Trust Fall (Write Bloody Press), and the forthcoming Glitter In The Blood, A Poet’s Manifesto for Better, Braver Writing. She co-founded and currently directs the literary nonprofit Write Now Poetry Society, and is a touring cast member of The Whirlwind Company and The Last Nerve-A High Tea Poetry Brawl.
A force in the National Poetry Slam scene since 1998, she has performed and taught at hundreds of universities and venues across America and Europe, opened for indie rock act the Cold War Kids, and has curated poetry events for the Smithsonian, the Getty Center, the Los Angeles County Arts Commission and more.
Mindy was a featured reader at Portland's own Small Doggies Reading Series PDX005 in January of 2011. This poem was originally featured in Small Doggies Reading Series Chapbook #1, available for purchase here.
She can be easily stalked at www.thecultofmindy.com