Damnatio Memoriae Poem by Joseph S. Josephides

You threw as useless Seneca’s Principles, your fortune.
He cares less for the villas and avenues you donated him.
For a wise those are not superior to peace. You lost him,
also Rufus; you are drown, pulled by the Narcissus idol,
by Tingelinus, the serene of hedonism, the Casa d’ Oro…

Nero, you did choose your end from the beginning,
when ordered us to buy off for you a victory in Olympia,
to help you up when you fell from tethrippus in the game
to bribe other athletes so that you finish on foot, ahead.

We shout hurah for you! What’s the value of the clamours?
We lost our speech when saw Olympia pushing you down.
She tested your impudence and foretold that you would fall,
that she would throw you for good by holy wrath, in Spain;
there you fell from horse, as a lump by the foot of old Galvus,
your Senate voted and sent you in the exterior eternal oblivion.

We, who apply your wishes, now out of your sharp shadow,
we see you as a burned burner, but Seneca’s head be alive;
a virtue shines after death, as a burnt wood turns into a forest,
it’s a new Rome, where your hunters join with those you hunted.

Following Zachaeus, we climb the tree to gaze at Virtue,
to gain what you have lost when fallen from your Highness.

In your vain fire, the wreath of Olympia is a non-burnt brier.