Gurren Lagann - The Epic Poem

by PoetryGuy

Reimagining Gurren Lagann as a medieval epic. I'm rewriting each episode in alliterative verse, the style used in Beowulf, Gawain and the Green Knight, and a few other classics. Before animation and theater, people relied on the power of words to capture dramatic action. Can the epic tale be retold as poetry? Only one way to find out!

1.

Digging through dirt, mundane and mistreated,

Simon slumps crouching at work in his tunnel,

Knowing nothing but caves, living life underground,

Suddenly surprised by a small glowing drill.

Perplexed by his prize, humming light in his hand,

Simon unknowingly bumps into Kamina,

Prideful and passionate, bold and bright-spirited,

Elevated to aniki his new little brother.

Declaring him destined to pierce through the heavens,

Kamina quickly enlists him for greatness,

Mustering mole-pigs in an uprising column,

Were foiled, made fruitless, by the meddlesome chief.

Kamina jailed and injured for claiming

To hail from heavens, vistas far above the village,

Fated like his father to dream and imagine,

The cantankerous chief left Kamina in chains.

Beginning again to burrow, Simon was soon startled,

By a face that he found of gigantic proportions.

Stonelike and stationary, terrifyingly timeless,

Simon broke out his brother to share his discovery.

Nearly nabbed by the chief with his power the punish,

The ceiling soon fell in with the sudden appearance

Of a monstrous mecha, stupendous in scale,

And a gorgeous young girl with more weapons than wardrobe.

Kamina, crazed, fought the beastman bare-handed

While the girl in her grit made a blaze with her bullets

Enraging the enemy with boulders falling

The new party nearly undone in the combat.

Simon, surprisingly struck with ideas,

Suggested to Kamina the face may bid fortune,

And taking his chances he turned to the mecha,

His drill bit beginning to glow even brighter.

Piling in purposefully, flush with fighting spirit,

The team turned the tide in their newly named Lagann;

With instincts inviolate and never before gathered

Awakened a drill that delivered them upward.

Bursting the boundaries of the burdening ceiling,

Team Gurren (as Kamina called the brigade)

Destroyed the dread enemy and swung up through the cave

Straight into the sky between sun and moon suspended.

Hanging in heaven with a mere moment's respite

Watching with wonder what Kamina dreamed of,

"Yoko, you'll know me by," the girl said in introduction,

Finding out all too late that their craft was fast falling.

Fearful, they fastened themselves for the impact,

Landing at last on the the ground as it grabbed them,

Simon's supported by the bosom of Yoko,

Withdrew himself blushingly after the impact,

She shocked,

For once his face

Had from her chest withdrew,

Two mecha enemies

Appeared in view.