Damnatio Memoriae

Damnatio memoriae-
The phrase itself widely forgotten
Or unknown, it's meaning not so much,
That frightful spark that leaps from the bonfire of history,
To catch those who shine too bright
Too strange in their bleak setting,
The names condemned -
Damnatio memoriae.

Black ink on pages obscure more than words,
More than the sum of lost letters,
A cartouche chiseled away,
A wall wiped clean of thoughts in blood.
Heresies breed fear and fervor -
The strangeness of a fellow might decide his fate,
The ban of his words might shape the world.

Names ripped from lips and public record
Lay buried in the ash heap of history,
Gods and man have suffered the same fate,
Some known only by their absence -
Defaced statues, faces, names,
Painted out of memory or thought.
Some blanks stare back more conspicuous than others,
Other times the condemnation worked.

Damnatio Memoriae -
Even kings could be struck -
Cults of a god that offends,
Men of plots that failed,
Friends or generals who said the wrong thing -
Who knows what we were made to forget
By people history itself may not remember.

Enough is lost without the purposeful censure of knowledge,
Enough is written freely that cannot be read.
Man has enough to decipher from the ancient
Without worrying what may be covered up.
I can think of no greater crime or waste,
Nothing more wicked dreamt of by man
Than the eradication of record and fact.

We were lost when Alexandria burned,
There has never been a greater degradation
Of man by man himself.
No loss of life can compare to the loss of reason,
The effacement of such hard-bought knowledge.
There is not a crueler thing we could have done
Than this, the reprehension of history -

Damnatio memoriae -
May such practices be forgotten.