the mid ps2 era

late 2002 to 2005, roughly

a bedroom recluse

gave way to a shared doormroom.

the new plastic smell

had long since worn off

and the mere novelty

of smoother framerates

was greeted with increasingly

apathetic laments of "so what?"

a memory card

still bearing remnants

of games we set back out into the world

for a fraction of the retail price.

the black rider was dead,

and for sheer nostalgia

his last memory retains residence

in the flipbook of new silver bottomed discs

gradually overtaking their purple forefathers.

we moved from the cold streets of

a fictional new amsterdamned

to sunnier pastures

on both fronts of the great seas.

the old regime members,

stricken with rheumatism,

vanished

as old soliders are apt to do.

columbus had arrived,

and the world we once saw as flat

was now truly round

with no exceptions or caveats.

former whip wielders were written

out of sacred legend

in order for pale crusaders

to stare down death

in the great hall of a crumbling castle.

the path to the future is traced backwards,

for the greatest triumph of this age

bathed himself in the blood

of fallen gods and monsters.

shackled with his power

and released by his damnation.

enough blood to fill the realm of Poseidon

stained the feet of Hades

while the warrior confidently bellowed,

flaunting his power and fire

atop his throne,

yet Apollo's chariot

was reaching the end of his journey,

and down in the valleys

the broke and beaten

were crawling their way

up the mountainside.