He Says There Is No God: A Long, Slightly Modernized, Folk Ballad

Harlan Carves Bessie's Casket as His Wife Looks On: Created by Copilot 365. Prompt by Michael B. Thomas

As I recall, I created this long folk ballad from several different poems by sticking the ideas all together. I think at one time I had an idea for the music to which this might be sung. If you are a musician, and you come up with a tune, please let me know. I would be very, very interested in a collaboration.

Several readers of Atheists and Empty Spaces have asked me who this ballad is really about. Well, like I say with the characters in the Dewey Lynn books, this ballad is about nobody, and, at the same time, it is about everybody that I have ever known. My dad had polio, and he came from a large family, and he couldn't walk as a child for some time, and he quit school around the eighth, but those are only details that are added to an entirely fictional character. A couple of details of the lives and stories of my good friends Chuck Hastings and Tollie Leonard are included in here. The last four lines of the chorus are almost word-for-word (without the rhyme, of course) what I heard someone say at a funeral. Just about everything in this ballad really happened in one form or another to someone that I knew personally, but none of them to one single person. Should that matter? Nope, I can't see that it does. I will warn you that this is a LONG poem. It would be a really, really long song, but that it was it is intended to be. Think Man of Constant Sorrow if you need a comparison. As always, ENJOY!

He Said There Is No God

He was born to parents poor as dirt

And never knew a moment’s peace.

His life was full of loss and hurt,

Cathead biscuits and bacon grease.

His mama prayed, his daddy cursed.

Somehow, they made twelve kids.

Two others died after childbirth,

Most likely due to SIDS.

He was the fifth and in the way.

He had no room to grow.

So, he stayed small and then one day

Fell prey to polio.

The fever nearly did him in,

But the pain, his Mama surmised,

Was not a punishment for his sin.

For that, he was paralyzed.

With no spare time to care for him

And no way to pay for meds,

His chance for healing well was slim

In a small house full of kids,

So he went to live with Pa and Ma

Who gave him food to eat.

For four tough years, he could only crawl,

Dragging his legs and feet.

Where he found strength, nobody knows,

But his arms grew big and strong.

When he felt a stinging in his toes,

He would walk before very long.

Sometime the year his sister was raped

By a deacon from the church,

He pulled himself up off a crate

And stumbled across the porch.

Chorus:

I watched him live, and I watched him die,

And never, one time, heard him curse.

I witnessed many a deep-felt sigh,

But hardly any worse,

And still, I turned from his fresh grave

With no teardrop in my eye

Until I heard a stranger say

As I was passing by,

“This man’s sad lot in life is done

And they’ve covered him in sod,

But do not cry for this man, son,

For he said there is no God.”

Now, standing well, he walked to class

And made a decent mark.

Then, Mama grew a cancerous mass,

And he had to go to work.

Thirteen years old and bucking logs,

Giving Daddy the cash he made,

He lost a toe to skidding dogs

But never got repaid.

Each evening in their forest lair,

The loggers shared a jug.

He’d hardly grown his first chest hair

Before he felt the tug.

The liquor didn’t give him rest

But sort of led him to it.

He liked the very strongest best

And found out how to brew it.

His first still was a turnip,

The second a submarine,

And with it, he made more lettuce

Than he had ever seen.

He spent summers at his set-up,

Cooking mash and hunting game,

And spent most nights deep in a cup

Till the Revenuers came.

At his young age, they let him go

On his withering mama’s vow

That he’d forsake the still fire’s smoke.

He uses propane now.

Mama died in gut-wrenching pain

Crying anxiously to her Lord.

Her service was just one more thing

Nobody could afford.

Chorus:

I watched him live, and I watched him die,

And never, one time, heard him curse.

I witnessed many a deep-felt sigh,

But hardly any worse,

And still, I turned from his fresh grave

With no teardrop in my eye

Until I heard a stranger say

As I was passing by,

“This man’s sad lot in life is done

And they’ve covered him in sod,

But do not cry for this man, son,

For he said there is no God.”

At seventeen, he sought a wife

Though he’d never made a plan

To make moonshine a family life.

He was a bootleg man.

His wife sewed at the Factory.

He piddled here and there.

His kids at ages two and three

Got lice all in their hair.

When they shaved poor Bessie’s head,

They found a lump on her brain.

She lived her short life strapped in bed

And shriveled up in pain.

The Factory gave no insurance,

So he had to sell Pa’s cabin,

Then the rest of his inheritance

To pay for Bessie’s medicine.

Before she died, he whittled a fine

Casket with a carved maple top,

At her funeral, he stank of ‘shine,

Then never touched another drop.

Chorus:

I watched him live, and I watched him die,

And never, one time, heard him curse.

I witnessed many a deep-felt sigh,

But hardly any worse,

And still, I turned from his fresh grave

With no teardrop in my eye

Until I heard a stranger say

As I was passing by,

“This man’s sad lot in life is done

And they’ve covered him in sod,

But do not cry for this man, son,

For he said there is no God.”

Now, Johnny was defiant but small

And spoilt by his Mama hen.

By fourteen, he’d seen juvie hall,

By eighteen, the Arkansas Pen

Where he developed a new obsession,

With an all-forgiving savior.

After eighteen months for possession,

He was released on good behavior.

 Sundays, he carried his Mama to church,

Where she smiled and patted his hand.

Then, they sat together on the front porch

And warbled “Let’s Take the Land.”

If Johnny worked, nobody heard

But he always wore fancy clothes.

He drove a souped-up Firebird

And tinted its driver's side windows.

 If any church doors were open,

You could bet where Johnny’d be found,

But his daddy was certainly hopin’

He wasn’t just jackin’ around,

For he might have fooled his Mama,

But not so much his dad,

Who felt very little trauma

When Johnny died in a drug deal gone bad.

Chorus:

I watched him live, and I watched him die,

And never, one time, heard him curse.

I witnessed many a deep-felt sigh,

But hardly any worse,

And still, I turned from his fresh grave

With no teardrop in my eye

Until I heard a stranger say

As I was passing by,

“This man’s sad lot in life is done

And they’ve covered him in sod,

But do not cry for this man, son,

For he said there is no God.”

With little Johnny buried,

The wife would not survive,

And though she still was married,

She preferred not to be alive.

She got a script for opies,

Through the government Medicaid.

She spent her days like dopies,

Sipping lukewarm lemonade.

Ten years, she dwelled inside her head

In a disconnected haze.

One night, he touched her in their bed.

She’d been dead for several days.

He buried her next to her son

In a plot far from their daughter’s,

And he never would have got them one

If it hadn’t been for Potter’s.

Chorus:

I watched him live, and I watched him die,

And never, one time, heard him curse.

I witnessed many a deep-felt sigh,

But hardly any worse,

And still, I turned from his fresh grave

With no teardrop in my eye

Until I heard a stranger say

As I was passing by,

“This man’s sad lot in life is done

And they’ve covered him in sod,

But do not cry for this man, son,

For he said there is no God.”

I knew ol’ Harlan pretty well,

Bought his firewood and ‘shine.

I hauled his livestock to the sale

Whenever I took mine.

One time when I was short on luck

And cash-strapped to the bone,

We bought an Army surplus truck

And started hauling stone.

He told me stories of a war,

Though I’d never known he served.

They were like no tales I’d heard before,

Harlan always lost his nerve.

He hid in ditches and foxholes,

And he never fired his gun.

Then, he showed me a box full of medals

He swore that he shouldn’t have won.

Now, that’s according to him not me,

I reckon he’s pretty smart

To think that we best serve our country

By not getting blown apart.

I guess that what I‘m trying to say

Is that this man seemed a friend.

He never sat in anyone’s way

Nor had any fences to mend.

I don’t know what he believed,

And I don’t know what he thought.

I don’t think he was ever deceived

But I can’t say that he was not.

Was he a good man? I don’t know.

He engaged in some criminal acts.

He never hurt a human though

And those are basic facts.

His life was full of loss and hurt,

Cathead biscuits and bacon grease.

He was born to parents poor as dirt

And never knew a moment’s peace.

Maybe he said, “There is no God,”

And maybe he was right,

But I’ll not be there to spare the rod

Though I think a real God might.

Chorus:

I watched him live, and I watched him die,

And never, one time, heard him curse.

I witnessed many a deep-felt sigh,

But hardly any worse,

And still, I turned from his fresh grave

With no teardrop in my eye

Until I heard a stranger say

As I was passing by,

“This man’s sad lot in life is done

And they’ve covered him in sod,

But do not cry for this man, son,

For he said there is no God.”