Damocles

Greek character, advisor to King Dionysus, who had a sword hung by a thread above his head, to demonstrate the frailty of happiness and of success.

Taciturn, twist and meet
(or) cross with a purpose, chaste and neat
Signal fire the foremost spell
Earthen glee, barbaric yell
"Remember me" we have returned
With fire legions, hands are burned
Three men stand before a crowd
With naked wrists and thunder cloud

The spit came thick with broken words
Pictures castles stony birds
Shiny mirror in their eyes
See power, lazy, choking lies
The wisdom of a centuries weight
(lurking freedoms hesitate)
While lonely healers make the most
Of some old bitch's Asian ghost

Plot me in the great escape
Then cut my drugs and make me late
Sort out letters from the kill
(mother's country--maiden's fill)
Need to go on; a soldier's crutch
These the branches, roots that clutch
Growing out from neighbor's eyes
This a warning to the wise:
This a warning to the wise!
Maintain vigilant despise
Rotten meat and apple cores
((the smell of sweet eyeshadowed whores))
Slicing neat with shoulders shrugs
She thinks "pretty is as pretty does"
At necropolis, a hangman's feast
I the dreamer, you the dream.

Damocles got sucker punched
A bastard sword at Sunday brunch
He never saw the plot entire
Or heard the plier clip the wire
But unimpressed with kingly strife
He called the bluff and took his life.

In England waits a prince in need
On beggars worm the fish will feed.

-dem bones-
--grumbling dissertation on how everything would be much better if it all were to explode--

Also a classic computer game from Novagen Software for the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga. It was released in 1990. A PC version was completed but never released to the public.

Like the 1989 game 'Starglider 2' from Argonaut Software, it featured solid-filled polygons and a complete solar system that you could explore. Unlike 'Starglider 2', you could actually get out of your vehicle and wander about.

This is why it's so memorable - you could fly from one planet to another, find a city, explore, and fly back again, all in one continuous sequence. Only Frontier has managed to capture the same feeling of freedom.

The plot involved preventing the comet of the title from impacting on a planet called Eris in a distant star system; as with the prequel, 'Mercenary', there were several (five, in this case) different ways to achieve this.

Some of the solutions involved blowing up planets or the comet itself, whilst two of the solutions were more esoteric and involved finding a magic wishing crystal, or the author's computer, with which you could crash the game.

There was a sequel, 'Mercenary 3'. Nothing has been seen like it since.