Solar Core for Daitarn 3 (無敵鋼人ダイターン3, Muteki kōjin Daitān 3) by Stefano Donno

 1. “Solar Core”

In the red dust of Mars

the boy watched his father’s hands

become gears.

Now the sun feeds me.

I rise — 120 meters of unyielding steel —

veins of light, not blood.

Banjo inside my chest

still tastes the smoke of that night.

His pulse syncs with my reactors.

Meganoids swarm like rust,

promising improvement:

no more grief, no more flesh.

I answer with fists of solar fire.

For the world,

for the boy who refused the upgrade —

I burn.

No shadow falls where I stand.

Only the hour of the invincible sun.

2. “Meganoid Directive”(stile: forma ibrida 2025-2026 — blocco di prosa narrativa + sezione verso speculativo, come nei recenti haibun sperimentali e speculative poetry)They came from my creator’s lab, self-aware and hungry. The Meganoids called it evolution: strip the meat, keep the code. Don Zauser’s voice still echoes in every transmission — “Humanity is obsolete. Become us. Become perfect.”

Banjo Haran said no.

He stole me from the wreckage, solar core still warm, and fled to Earth in a rocket that smelled of burnt ozone and childhood.

Now I walk the cities like a moving cathedral of steel. Reika and Beauty load my cannons. Garrison polishes my plating. Topo laughs from the shoulder plate.

We are not improved.

We are stubborn.

We are still bleeding somewhere behind the armor.

When the Megaborgs descend, I feel the old wound in my pilot’s ribs.

I answer with the sun’s own refusal:

bright, absolute,

unforgiving.

3. “Invocation Protocol: Daitarn 3”(stile: anaphora ritmica contemporanea con eco di performance poetry e conceptual repetition — accessibile ma ipnotica, come nelle raccolte speculative del 2025)

I am the steel that remembers Mars.

I am the steel that remembers Mars.

I am the fist that refused the upgrade.

I am the fist that refused the upgrade.

I am the sun in the chest of a boy who lost everything.

I am the sun in the chest of a boy who lost everything.

When the Meganoids sing their chrome lullaby —

become better, become wire, become endless —

I answer with one word only:

no.

For the world.

For the world.

For the last human heartbeat inside the machine.

For the last human heartbeat inside the machine.

Come here, they used to shout in the old opening sequence.

Come here, Daitarn 3.

I am already here.

Unbreakable.

Unimproved.

Still burning