The Ballad of Joyce Carol Vincent

This tale’s a sad story of a calico queen

who died in her bedsit, her body unseen.

With the window still open and TV set on

people passed by thinking nothing was wrong.

 

For three years she lay, on a sofa, alone.

Her room was her tomb; her body was worn.

Letters came daily but fell on the floor.

Nobody thought what lies inside the door.

 

Flies must have gathered inside the room

shrouding her body; a mummy of gloom.

Rot and decay was the source of the smell

that people ignored in this part of hell.

 

Sky city they call it, where lorries roll by

but no-one looks up to where other people cry,

living their lives in a featureless haze,

whilst we all walk by averting our gaze.

 

Joyce Carol Vincent; that was her name.

Her death, all alone, her main claim to fame.

It was December ‘03 when Joyce met her death,

wrapping her presents she drew her last breath.

 

Joyce was no junkey, no drunken old maid;

a high flying go-getter, her bills were all paid.

She was funny, vivacious and so loved to sing.

Her friends were surprised she was wearing no ring.

 

So why did this woman with so much to share

live in a hovel and die in a chair?

She shook hands with the famous, Mandela for one,

but New Year approached and her star was undone.

 

A room in a refuge was her lot in life

a relationship breakdown causing the strife.

Her career was gone, her friends had been lost.

Her beauty it seems had come at a cost.

 

But how can this happen in cities so dense,

Joyce as alone as Scott’s men in their tents?

So as you walk by the vagrants in town

give them a thought but don’t put them down.