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The lines you see below are the lyrics to Porcupine Tree’s song called ‘Nine Cats’ from the album ‘Insignificance’. Prizes for paraphrases. And ooh, a bonus video at the end.



The butterfly sailed on the breeze,

Past a field of barbed wire trees,

Where golden dragons chased around,

Pampered poppies on the ground.

Two silver trout sat way on high,

And watched a royal samurai,

Plant two black orchids in a box ,

And strap it to a laughing fox.

A minstrel bought a crooked spoon

He gave it to a blue baboon,

Who filled it full of virgin snow

And watched it in the afterglow.

Fat toad stood in his ballet shoes,

Teaching sixteen kangaroos,

How to skip across a lake.

They found it hard to stay awake.

A pharaoh played a merry tune

And watched nine cats dance on the moon.

I didn’t know what all this meant,

I didn’t know why I’d been sent.

I threw 5 clocks down on my bed,

The chimes danced out on golden threads

And turned to footprints on my wall

Sequined tears began to fall.

I am asleep today,

But dawn is on its way.

Peace, I hope to find,

And leave it all behind.



The Sun burns my swollen eyes.

My tired mind he spies.

He sees nought but reposing calm

Curled up in puerile charm.



The Wind stirs my burning skin

To kill the trance that I am in.

But I keep my eyes shut tight,

And leave it all behind.



I leave it all behind.

Peace, I hope to find.

She sings me a dirge tonight.

I leave it all behind.

I dreamed last night that the world was lost,

Fires burning, and me and Faust

Left this earth to find a land

As pure and fresh as Gaea’s hand.



We learned to fly and flew up high,

Out of the reach of beholding eyes.

We flew faster than any spaceship sailed,

Yet slower than a crawling snail.



We journeyed on across the expanse,

And before our eyes the stars would dance.

We stopped for a while and I glanced down.

I saw a crazy diamond shining on.



Its light was too bright for my mortal vision,

So Faust sailed without me into the horizon.

My wings, like Icarus, were brittle, were weak,

And I fell into depths that none dare to seek.



And in the darkness I lay like a ghost,

Craving and pining for what I desired the most.

To make this trivial world sublime,

Just half a gram of Phanerothyme.







(This is dedicated to all my high-getting friends. I hope my description was not too naive. And FYI the las two lines are Aldous Huxley’s.)