A Gunslinger in Babylon

"By the waters of Babylon we sat down, yea we wept when remembered Zion" a poem after the Psalm 137 by Allan Snavely (with a fair number of literary and pop culture allussions sprinkled throughout)

In the worlds God forgot
Or from which she deliberately withdrew
After the dubious battles
When the worlds forked in two
You find only un-homed angels
And no card-carrying devils too
Nothing to kill or die for
But what you believe to be true
From a whisper
A poem
Or song fragment
A remembrance of you
In exile here beyond the seas Jerusalem

In the fallen worlds
At 939 2nd Street
A node-point of The Tree
A nexus that connects the worlds
At least in dreams back to thee
I stand on guard in the heart of the nave
No angels
Just me
To serve The White and confound the Black
Thus it must ever be
In the lands beyond the pale
The small must serve where the great are not
But I'm armed secretly
With an antique weapon from over the trackless seas
From your shores Jerusalem

Invisible the weapon I wear with sandalwood butt
And antique barrel forged from fragments of
Narsil when she shattered, Excalibar de-forged
When fired she wakes up tempestuous echoes of Lucipher's wars
In Heaven
On the windy Plain
Where our square was broken
Where Mandakini runs
Jerusalem

Jerusalem if I forget thee may my gun-arm forget its strength
My fingers the reloading trick
My eyes to not blink
My hand to lead and body to follow the quick-draw
My heart to take the length
Of who I kill with my mind
Before the lead goes in
Returning the soul to whom it serves White or Black
If scornful seraphim crosses thee
Be thunder in the sanctuary!
Bang! In the name of The White! Jerusalem!

Jerusalem
Gilead
Gondor of the White Tree
In my soul's eye I remember the image
Of my capital city
Ruled by The Nameless One before we were forked off from She
From the lands of obedience, truth, and light
Cutoff
Beyond the starless sea of freewill, Jerusalem

Not here, not here
Somewhere far beyond the chartless sea
In the courts of Gilead the fair
Where stands the White Tree
In the halls of the kings who served thee for an Age of Brahma in perfect fealty
Jerusalem before the fall
Grave my name small and simply
On the wing-wall where in small letters a myriad faithful one's names stretch infinitely
If I have not forgotten thee when I fall in battle
Then write it small and simply
A. S.
Of the Hansa-balaka
A gunslinger from Jerusalem