Elegy To My Lost Soulmate Ijestic Ijotti: 1985 Poem by Victor Okechukwu Anyaegbuna

Yesterday….
truth suddenly dawns…
I stared morosely
watching destiny
fly away with wild winds
that floated petals
…..of shrinking white roses.
Discretion played a nasty game
on my hopeless wit…
that error fouled

Innocence…
then purity came easy…
slaves of ego on wings;
true love truncated
by intangible imagination
from voices in the wind
that killed wit,
…..deep passions
innocent, seamless
affection nurtured... but
murdered in cold blood

At ten plus three scores
nearly half of a life shared
but scorpions of fate
dared an enviable lifetime.

Now nemesis awakes…
to avenge pains
unprovoked denial
pure innocence,
love and beauty
could not retrieve;
concealed without a fight
but torment….. sorrows
transformed to curses
justified and heard
in tears of the high heavens.

I bear my cross heavily now
how life mocks death, yet…
this is not life or…
what you would have made it.

Your arsenals tracked pungent winds
that mesmerised me
…but your intense pains
three decades and six ago
pulsating to burst the rib cage,
hurt and hunt me deeply
… please have mercy…
forgive my naivety …
that scored an ignoble goal

Scrap those pangs
…unprovoked… and if you can,
clean that beautiful heart…
so harmless…
that did me no wrong,
but wrapped me
in warmth and total submission:
to reduce this hell of nemesis
in its unrestrained
and pugnacious ferocity.

Now I know… albeit belatedly
Dry winds melted my missing rib
when vapours without heat
evaporated my real life mate;
my companion…
divinely crafted… not to death
but to sheer doltishness,
inexcusable exuberance of youth
and an unthinking irrational mind.

Today…
I am a gloom of that venus
you first saw and so spoilt,
truly loved and pampered.
Did I know what I wanted?
Did I know what I had…
on a platter of gold…?
that God gave so freely
and fortuitously blessed me with?
…but I thrashed it.
What a disaster!

I caused you needless misery.
Sure, now I know I did
and that torture has reverted.
You wept so silently...
this I now know...
but God read your innocent heart
Will you ever forgive me?
…I can hardly even forgive myself

Anguish has become my second name
with your beautiful face and mien
in this mirror of life facing me.

This dearth of life started
five years of wandering
in the wilderness of fate
taunted by your gentle standards

Three scores and six years hence…
the challenge of my fatal blunder
dawns…
with a thunderous bang;
from precincts of nattered mortality
bliss and beauty vanished
with wails of divine adjunct.

Why has it taken this long
to realise the cruelty of my brashness?
…of seeking angels of love
in bums of filth and hate?

In you and with you,
Love came so straight and sincere;
beauty never came so simple and elegant
yet, both I thrashed
for no sane reasons at all but…
on flimsy anecdotes
that killed riches…
destiny and care,
and truncated...
enviable times ahead.

Crimson, your fair beautiful face turned...
with gloom that sold my future
for less than thirty pieces of silver.

Now, I swim in the chilly ocean of tears
with pain and regrets
in unrestrained ferocity;
sorrow for my forever lost destiny
and morbidly wasted lifetime
may you and God forgive me.

I pray you to unbind me
for the little time left
let me be your slave...
for the rest of my nattered life...
release me, my forever beloved,
that I may trail paths that will reunite us
forever in the life hereafter
and in our next return.

December 23,2021

[To my forever lost soulmate Ijestic Ijotti.]