Long Calabash Poems
Long Calabash Poems. Below are the most popular long Calabash by PoetrySoup Members. You can search for long Calabash poems by poem length and keyword.
For six days, the sky has opened its palms
over Awka, over Nnobi, over the red earth
that drinks and drinks and never says enough.
Today, the rain began in the dark,
while the moon hid her face and the rooster slept,
and now the sun has risen, bold and bright,
yet the rain refuses to go.
It pours like a promise kept,
like the voice of the ancestors
speaking from the clouds,
not in anger, but in abundance.
The sky is a calabash,
and it is not yet empty.
This is the season of the yam,
the first fruit lifted from the ground,
offered to the gods who remember
the taste of sweat and the smell of new soil.
Even in Nnobi, where my people dance
with white chalk on their foreheads,
the rain joins the celebration—
not as a stranger, but as a kinsman.
Let it fall.
Let it soak the thatch and the roads,
let it fill the streams and the song of the frogs.
The yam is fat beneath the ground,
and the rain is its midwife.
This is not a flood; it is a blessing.
This is not a delay; it is a rhythm.
July has passed its baton to August,
and the rain has not forgotten its duty.
It falls on the market women
who spread their wares under zinc,
on the children who splash through puddles,
on the elders who nod and say,
"This is how it was in our time."
So let the sky be bright and the rain be heavy.
Let the new yam be eaten with joy.
For even the sun knows when to bow
to the water that gives life.
And we, the children of the earth,
know when to raise our hands
and say thank you.
For Awka, for Nnobi, for the rain that knows its season.
Chukwuemeka Ezeulukpu
LOVE ON PHONE (2)
Two weeks run past us
Who, when do we breaks the jinx?
She can’t come to Lagos
Her project thesis on her neck
It then fell on my round neck.
I just came back from Accra
Scheduled another to Abuja
Excuses galore rented the air
Was I scared to beholding her?
Would I like what I will see?
She is getting impatient
As she long a feel of me
Dirty mind! not of that you think
For she is intact even at
Two dozens plus one age
Her calabash not yet broken.
I was proud of her sanctity
Joy smiled over me of her chastity
Could she be the heart
I have been searching for?
Please, don’t tell it to her that
I am dying to see her too.
Alayande Stephen T.
8.25pm
8th November, 2007
The story continues.
In the fields to the great kiskadees’ trill
digging for topitambo in the long grass -
our small dirty hands our basket to fill
with Asis’s wide toothless grin and cutlass.
To watch his grizzled face tight from rum
cut coconut and dasheen bush slash -
he say “Master Skeet, here try some”
and sit and eat callaloo from a calabash.
These are the roots of an age unmistook
when its old budding leaves of time shook.
A time of seasons and a time of change
back long ago in the stableyards
with horse and groomer in Blue Range.
On Diego Martin lowlands days passed
slowly with such sweet fancy not yet dimmed,
licking the dark sticky raw cane molasses,
the pulp and juice of the plump tamarind.
Eating deep red pomerac and julie mango,
toolum and sugar cake fast disappear -
pink guava and sugar apple sweet for so,
sapodilla, sour sop, and pommecythere.
These are the fruits of an age unmistook
when its old budding trees of time shook.
A time of seasons and a time of change
back long ago in the stableyards
with horse and groomer in Blue Range.
Written: May 1996
Still Waters Run Deep
Still,
Eyes never sleep-
Tranquility hides the calm's breath,
Where peace hums low,wisdom is loud
Watch me.
When the lion sleeps
Dreams hunt-
In quiet grass,
The prey dares to wander,
Forgetting dawn will wake the king-
Too late.
Even the Ant Knows Hunger
Soft feet,
Carry the world,
No rest till the fest starts-
Tiny thinkers teaching the proud
To work.
Mother Tongue
Speak soft,
old river voice.
Words like stone in my mouth-
rolling,remembering,washing
me home.
A Broken Calabash Still Holds Rain
Old pots,
Patched with mercy,
Still pour water like mothers-
not perfect,
but still giving love
that lasts
I was loving the sun,
Not consciously doing anything
My gourds hanging sweetly,
Too big to move much
Dancing with internal mirth
Because I was being picked today
It is always a relief to a calabash
When the pickers arrive
I heard laughter and stood a bit taller
Glad I could see farther than bushes
But no one showed, so I knew
It was not the pickers.
I sat back and enjoyed the
love of the sun a little longer,
excited the gourds would be going to new homes
today, knowing they would love
being bird houses and decorations
Feeling sad for the ones who
would be turned into tobacco pipes
They are all my children,
I want them all to
breathe and enjoy
the sun...
Any time I return, my heart starts to ache,
For Granny, dear Danny, no one could fake.
Beloved of children, of girls and of boys,
A pillar of courage, a bringer of joys.
Where is the laughter, the sparkle, the glow?
She rests in the quiet, the woods far below.
Your harvest endured from season to season,
Your coins lay in pillows, safe with good reason.
Merchants adored your grains-gleaming gold,
Never a kernel of chaff to be sold.
Where is the farmer, the banker, the glow?
She rests in the quiet, the woods far below.
Each time I left or returned from the city,
Your prayers, your hugs, your dances and smiles,
Kept me unworried and happy for miles
Your gentle short frowns, your anger so mild,
Could never outlast the heart of a child.
You’d beckon us close to taste what you made,
As though your sure hands in the kitchen might fade.
Do you still smile, dance, pray, and bestow—
Or just rest in the quiet, the woods far below.
I could never tire of your welcoming home,
A compound so wide, yet you swept every loam.
A grandmother’s house, yet spotless and bright,
With a pot of warm porridge that lasted each night.
The endless calabash we drained to the brim,
And fruits without seasons, forever in prim.
We still long for granny, the friend that we know,
But she rests in the quiet, the woods far below.
By Teacher Kevin Ouma
Placed 10th in the contest 2025 Poetry Marathon Mile 13 by Mark Toney. Contest was judged on September 3rd, 2025
The First of the trilogy that continues as "The Sober Dawn" and "Tonight Will Soon Be Over".
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Afrobeats played in the background,
his sweet breaths drying my sweat.
Palmwine rested on his shaky left palm.
Then he said the nonsense
that drunk men usually mutter—
an alcohol-soaked “I love you.”
He staggered within arm’s length,
already reeking
of eight calabashes of liquor.
The drink painted his handsomeness
into
a mocking caricature of a clown.
His trembling right hand brushed my chest.
I felt good—
as if the hot tropical sun had frozen,
and my heart raced
to his sheepish smile.
My feet quaked as sweat soaked my shoes.
The ground vibrated under dancing legs,
the overcrowded clubhouse
minding its own business.
“African Calypso!”
thundered an inebriated fellow,
his chorus landing ten seconds early,
ahead the mimed song.
My new guy copied him.
He dragged me to the dance floor.
We were both drunk,
so we both fell over.
Bottles of palmwine broken,
calabashes shattered.
Everything was messed up—
except the Afrobeats,
the only joy that remained.
They tried to name me from a borrowed book,
To smooth my edges with a foreign sound.
But my name is a seed that my grandmother took
From the red earth, and planted in the ground.
It grew with the rhythm of the summer rain,
A melody only the old roads know.
It holds the quiet strength of the mountain chain,
And the story only the river’s flow can show.
They speak of futures written in distant stars,
Of paths that lead away from this red loam.
But my soul is rooted where the scarred earth bears
The fingerprints of all who call it home.
So when I speak, hear the dust of ancestors,
Feel the fire of a timeless, patient sun.
My name is not just sound—it is a compass
That finds its north only where I am from.
I carry the calabash, I carry the song,
A bridge between the future and the long, long gone.
He who learns, teaches
A flame shared is never less bright,
The candle burns double in heart.
From silence we borrow the light,
a flame shared is never too bright.
From elders we borrow the sight,
Then pass on the spark, our part-
a flame shared is never too bright
the candle burns double in heart.
No Smoke Without Fire
Their whispers,a curling flame,
Behind each hush heat untold,
No saint escapes a sinners name-
Their whispers rise, a curling flame.
Their tongue's a torch,it plays the game,
The truth too young,the lies too old-
Their whispers rise,a curling flame,
Behind each hush, a heat untold.
The Moon Has No Tribe
She shines for all-no clan,no claim,
The poor,the proud,the thief,the saint
Her light defies borders,
shame-
She shines for all-no clan,no claim.
We fight for dust,yet call her name,
Our prayers reach her without restraint-
She shines for all-no clan,no claim,
The poor,the proud,the thief,the saint.
Empty Calabash Makes Noise
Boast loud,your echo fills the air,
But hollow hearts ring out the most-
The wise drink deep and never swear.
Boast loud,your echo fills the air.
You think your thunder means you're rare,
Your silence keeps the truest boast-
Boast loud,your echo fills the air,
But hollow hearts ring out the most.
And we sat under
A gazebo that sat
Under palm trees,
Standing and smiling
At our seashore,
Emptying kegs of
Palmwine in our
Calabash and...
And then emptying
The calabash in our
Stomachs...
An exquisite experience,
I daresay!
The periwinkle-gatherer
Alighted from her
Canoe that arrived from
Upper sea, bending in her
Walk, no gratitude to her
Culture. Beside her followed
Her shadow, ever faithfully.
Their movement our common
Entertainment as we emptied
More fills of our calabash in us...
Entered the Crier, crying, like
A crying Cricket,
"The Archbishop of Canterbury,
And the Pope have now
Legalized a Skirt and another
Skirt together, and a Trouser
And its kind together!"
We unveiled the Holy Book,
In our flabbergastedness,
Afterwards, and replayed
The Crier's cry in our heads.
"A pity, for this shall soon be
Written in you by the Unknown
In Time to come and be said to
Be of the good God."
Were our only audibility.
We looked up and behold the gyre
For the legalization inundated
Our Vicinity! For the Crier's cries
Had spread its legs like a rumor.
Sadly, my partner patted her hairs
And we returned to our kegs,
Contemplating...