Long Enough
I have been called alot of names,
Sunflower, sun kissed by the momentary
Existence of beautiful things.
Been named a black boy because
I was long forgotten in the darkness
But I have changed, and my
Fingers are now neatly cut,
I let the waters thrive on my body,
I become one with it, I love how
Serene the layers of my skin is,
Unlike a facade, our hopes glimmer in
The front of our teeth, our fear is
The fear that we are afraid we will
Not be here forever. And we do not
Want to be here forever , but we want
To be here long enough to touch the world
With our kindness and plant trees for our seventh sons,
And mow the lawn for our sick neighbors,
We want to be here long enough to keep
A piece of our empathy in the ruthlessness
And yet kind embrace of the world.
Trance or Truce
The sea falls into silence,
Rome, built in a day,
The Greeks have come with memories,
Talk of us happily, we will hold the peace.
The sands, before they are soft,
Graze each other, ahh!
It’s the delight of being born,
O it’s the magic of being born.
Horses, drowned hooves into the ground,
Through the year, the harmattan, almost
Forgotten by healing, but before the sunshine
Comes the sun and before the sinners comes the sin.
There’s a room filled with flowers,
Country songs folded into a hymn,
Loneliness melts my ego into a cloud,
The rain washes away our suffering, washes away our guilt.
In Stillness We Remember
There’s no history left in
The mouth of a third,
Waters before thy kingdom come,
We would hold each others
Hands through a night bus,
Lagos, exquisite in its quiet
And terror, humans, borders away
Are being thrown into despair,
Traffic, soon, the bones of a garden
Almost buried by flowers,,
I know, where the women go to
At night , I know why they do what they do,
Why they talk with small consonants,
This was how they were raised,
To smile at every wound until
It goes away, to shove thier tears back into
Their eyes till it comes back as gold,
As anything but not weakness.
Emmanuel Sanusi
Emmanuel Sanusi is a Nigerian poet and writer currently based in the UK. He is greatly influenced by his environment and great minds like T.S. Eliot, Wole Soyinka, and J.P. Clark. He has performed his poetry at the Benue Book and Arts Festival in Nottingham, the Abuja International Poetry Festival, SLAMeroun, and elsewhere, with publications in Lolwe, the SEVHAGE Festival anthology, and Kalahari Review. His debut collection of poetry is forthcoming in 2026.
