Haji Gora Haji (1933) is a Swahili poet from Tumbatu. Some people in Zanzibar call him `The Old Hurricane´ after the title and the first poem of his anthology Kimbunga (1994 Dar es Salaam: Taasisi ya Uchunguzi wa Kiswahili) that made him well-known all over Taniania. While making a living from the sea, as a fisherman, porter in the harbour, sailor and transporter of cloves, he has been composing, since 1955, a large amount of ngoma and taarab songs, riddles, tenzi and mashairi, short stories and, recently, a short novel. This paper discusses metaphors and images that are characteristic of Haji Gora`s work, the way in which they reveal his identity and how they have been put in terms of contradictions and oppositions.