Machete - Bambara

There’s a clearing behind her mother’s house

The other side of Silver Creek

We’d drink cheap cherry vodka there late at night

Her dog Lobo at our feet

Yeah, Crystal was younger than me, but much tougher

With a dark smile on her lips

She looked so pretty laughing in my puckered face

When I pulled up her skirt a bit

Lobo took off, she said, «You catch that hound, I’m yours»

So I ran

Through the trees

Chasing sounds

Deep into the darkness

Then I fled, took Crystal to her room

Turned off all the lights

I closed the curtains to the sickle moon

Said, «There's a strange man outside

He was out there swatting lightning bugs

On his greasy face and body

I could just make out two big pale eyes staring

Through streaks of glowing green

His pig-face grinning mean»

Her smile

Fell away

And she said

«Thought I was going crazy

I’ve seen him too

And I can’t take it anymore

I can’t take it

Every night, I see him in the window

Those big pale eyes»

I stole a machete

Hacked up small animals for practice

Even when I found Lobo tied in a knot

No one believed us

Weeks later, I was patrolling the woods

Red lights flashing through the branches

I dropped the machete, ran to her house

And saw two cop cars and an ambulance

Lightning bugs glowing in the breeze

And I fell to my knees

It’s been years now, I moved to the city

To get lost in the trash like one of many fruit flies

And I found my wife Claire

So full of life, so wild, with a smile beyond compare

And our first child is kicking strong inside her

But sometimes I swear

I look at her face, and I see Crystal hiding in there

The way her lips pout when she’s brushing her hair

I see her everywhere, yeah

I tried my best to lose her

How I got lost in bars, spilling into streets, too drunk to dream

Can’t dream or I’ll see him choking Crystal with her sheets

And grinning mean

Now it seems like violence is a mist

Slowly creeping from the past

And I can’t help but feel he’s coming back for me

Just last week

An old machete was found lodged in some young cop’s gut

Right on our street

Where I could hear him suffering

And I recalled a possum

Still trying to run, though I’d cut its head clean off

Same as me, I thought

Fleeing home when I knew damn well he’d never stop

'Cause I saw those eyes

And tonight, as I patrolled the halls

Checking all the windows, I saw

The green glow of a lightning bug

Kissed Claire’s sleeping lips and grabbed my gun, yeah

Not gonna run