Read all about it,
Two great legends fight it out –
Biggest ever match!
(Paraphrased from Meditations)
I play from nature
Until I shall fall and rest
Upon the Go board
Which has supplied me with peace
And I use for many games.
Round Robin or
The Happy Hour
The clock says begin.
Clackity-clack fills the room.
We raise another.
Dreams of Empire
Seven stones no less,
And it might have ruled the world.
There’s your influence.
Fighting spirit somehow fled,
The great wall so beguiled me.
Woops, looks like I missed a day. Going to need to make two days’ worth now…
“Funny, it’s just like
That pleb’s game latrunculi
(Wisely called “brigands”) –
See how many are needed
To kill but a single one!”
That one’s going to take a bit of explaining, so bear with me. The speaker is Julius Caesar, its a mental monologue, and he’s referencing a real Roman game as he’s assassinated by the gang of senators. Latrunculi was similar in some aspects of its equipment and rules to Go but was probably more like the modern Japanese game hasami shogi.
“Choose how many stones,”
he said. I took the board and
Covered it in sand.
The stone vorpal-glowed,
Held by the spined insectid,
Humming patiently.
The holo-pundits looked on
(Still dressed for the '70s.)
Splitting with the Pope,
Henry made new rules, claiming
Himself England’s Meijin.
Respite
Samurai soldiers,
It is said, worked off tension
With the game of go.
Bloodless war welcome relief
From carnage, from mounting grief.
Dear Go Players:
If you like LISP and beards
Then choose GnuGo.
My group has no eyes
So there’s a lot of bad aj.
Nothing works: atar
nor nob. Not even a sek…
Can’t make life without any —
Thanks. I think I’m more of a tanka man. It seems you can stay on point, whereas haiku requires an intuitive leap. ( I wonder if I’ve actually written one).
The goban is flat
Like one page of an old book,
Or a treasure map.
Like a huge unexplored plain
Stretching away out of sight!
With one tentacle
Thraag the Annihilator
Played self-atari.
“These are just pebbles!”
(The Emperor to the Sage)
“Where’s the jade and gold?”
The Sage took a coconut:
“Would you judge this by its rind?”
Airport plane Japan
Tokyo metro kanji signs
Door club table board –
In Kyoto, it’s said
There’s an old izakaya
Where the lights are warm
And the Go players gather.
Clicking stones and cicadas…
"Leave the rug right there,
We have the whole night ahead –
Now, another game?
Go According to McCluhan?
Is it hot or cool?
Such density of info,
Such space to explore.
Like a roadmap that leads you
Everywhere yet nowhere.
“Riddle me this, then:
Three hundred doves and ravens
On a cornfield.
Two blind snakes are there fighting:
One-eye will swallow No-eye.”
Go is my father
Lover friend companion
My sun moon sky world –
The oldest goban:
Was it carved for a dead king
For eternity?
Or the rough-scratched floor tile
Used by the guards of his tomb?
[Stone Go boards have been found as grave goods in the tombs of Ancient Chinese nobility. As for the tile board, there’s some speculation repeated at https://senseis.xmp.net/?17X17Board :
"Chinese archaeologist have discovered a porcelain chessboard [read goban, probably a translation error] from the Western Han Dynasty (206 B.C.- 24 A.D.) in northwest China’s Shaanxi Province. This is the earliest discovery of a chessboard ever unearthed in China. The Chessboard was found at the ruins of a watchtower at the tombs of Emperor Jingdi of the western Han Dynasty. The chessboard, slightly damaged, and unequal measuring 28.5 cm to 5.7 cm long, 19.7 cm to 17 cm wide and 3.6 cm thick. the chessboard is carved with 17 ordinate and 17 transversal lines, Li Gang, a researcher with the Shaanxi Provincial Archaeological Research Institute, said that this chess board might be made from a floor tile and it does not belong to the royal family since the carvings on the chessboard are too rough. Li said the chessboard could have been made by the tomb guards who played chess to pass the time. “That proves that chess had been played not only by nobles, but also by ordinary people like tomb guards more than 2,000 years ago, " li noted.”]
Playing with kami,
Centuries passed quietly
Like wandering clouds.
“Climb not the mountain
Where the weeping willows grow;
There the Go Sage dwells.
For having once learnt his arts
You will not care to descend.”
Grasping at your wrist,
The invisible spirit
Damezumari.
Imamura Toshiya
Go analysts say
He plays a very thick game.
Uncompromising.
I just like to say his name.
One has to cling to something.
We stood on the moor,
Before a great stone circle.
My father spoke then:
“Each rock is like a Go stone,
Laying claim and keeping guard.”
I took the side then
I got guards and attack dogs
– just need a death ray.
Don’t introduce it.
Earthlings cannot understand
The beauty of Go.
They’re primitive savages
Who can’t even pronounce 
.
Go shows us winter
Snowflakes falling and melting,
Exposing dark rock.
Amongst the wave-stones,
A deadly shark-group lunges
At a slow sea-cow,
And a shoal of anchovies
Hems in a huge octopus.
Study the right way –
Refuse greed and cowardice
To play like kami.
There’s an old Go club
In the heart of Chinatown.
Take a big red bus
And we’ll spend the evening down
At the club in Chinatown.
Nameless, faceless stones
Voicelessly unquestioning,
Following orders.
Re: Impressionist Study
Call it lack of faith,
Call it whatever you will.
It’s how my mind works.
Got to grind it, play by play.
Fleeting forms just fade away.
Okay, I think I’m done. Go bugcat!
The crone said to me
“This is your grandfather’s board.”
It was all dented,
Marked and marred with dark tea stains
And criss-crossed by an inked sword.
Look at the night sky
The spirits are playing Go
With bright stars their stones.