Jay Thiemeyer could have died invisibly, laid out on some abandoned rail-yard or doorway for some security guard to find dead and bloated from the years of hard living, like thousands of people do each year in America – but he didn't.
Jay knows about going down the road feeling bad, and he reflects upon his life in his just-released first collection of poetry, "Marginal Notes." Jay's relentless pursuit of knowledge, and living on the edge of a broken down system, has given us a rare, and creative look inside the insanity of living on the streets while grasping the realization of the Reagan Revolution during the fall of America's great industrial era.
The poetry in "Marginal Notes" takes us on adventures and hardships – living in alleys, doorways and "weed patches" in urban and rural Dixie — to the streets of Portland where he would continue to battle his demons in the form of 100 proof Vodka, and an unjust system that dealt out the realities in which Jay lived.
For some progressives, Jay's life seems more like a Charles Bukowski rant than that of an honest and dedicated human being fighting poverty with every breath. But Jay has never been afraid to speak truth to power to those on the left, and right, who often times can't grasp that with poverty comes, "All she had come up with was: ‘Niggas ain't actin like colored people'," told in the poem, "Morning Woman."
But that's exactly who Jay is, and his poetry reflects this in "Dangling Time" about two people on the streets who hanged themselves together off the Steel Bridge in Portland, "Two young people died by hanging from a black steel bridge, monument to its monument/moment to moment; late summer day, autumn bridge plus young frozen blood."
"Marginal Notes" also contains two prose pieces that reflect Jay's experiences. "Looking for Dave at Blanchet House," and "ID" that walk you through what it's like to bounce around like a pinball from service to service to get an ID:
"We don't do IDs on Monday, he explains. You need to come back tomorrow at 1. p.m. Next day I come back at 1 p.m. They take five people. There was a line, but it was short. I get to the counter and say I want the ID He counts five people ahead of me. He points to my pinhead and says, ‘You're no. 6. You don't get no ID You gotta come back tomorrow at 1.'And out the door I go. Missed by a nose. But I know what to do now. I'm getting close in to that wise blood now. Tomorrow is gonna be the one. That tomorrow is gonna get it, sure enough."
Somewhere between a Rambling Jack Elliot ballad and an Upton Sinclair piece, you find Marginal Notes, carrying the torch from those who have walked down those unimaginable streets before. You won't find a more raw, creative, and unique observation of the streets than this — a clear view of what it's like to truly live on the road and deal with the realities of taking life several steps too far.