Benjamin Harnett

@benjaminharnett.com

3651 Followers 698 Following

Sometime poet, historian, software engineer, novelist, union man. https://www.benjaminharnett.com https://thehappyvalleynovel.com

A shadow box display for my collection of grand tour intaglio forms.
For sale the rose & kettle restaurant 607-435-0014.
A shot of a brown eyed Susan with glorious yellow and red petals and a hairy stem with the bright blue sky full of clouds behind it.
A burst of catnip in flower while on a folding patio table beside it sits one calico cat grooming. Below the table, shoulder deep in catnip, a white and grey tabby cat is contemplating existence.
A photo of a handful of morning glory flowers opening to the sun; some are still buds. They are climbing up a blackberry cane. The vignette effect makes them stand out against a blue sky.
A shot of the ocean rolling toward the shore, while the sky is full of smoke and haze, and the sand is powdery and soft after a violent storm.
Sunset over the bay, seen slant. The water shines like battered steel, an island is ripped from the horizon like a torn magazine, and the Boston terrier is watching through two dock cleats to see what comes next.
A portal appears in the pine trees and through it you can see the dark of a violent thunderstorm moving across the island. Some chair backs sit waiting on the patio.
The sky is a perfect gradient of light blue to a lip of hazy yellow; the sea a dark strip and then the beach where the water has just crested and is now retreating leaving a large reflecting pool. Reflected in the pool are the weathered and lonely pyramids of a distant past civilization (the morning).
Three more books in the stack including the reivers by William Faulkner, tom cox’s everything will swallow you, and Jane austen’s bookshelf by Rebecca Romney.
A stack of books: we lived on the horizon by Erika Swyler, two books of poems by Luis Garcia montero, bly on the eight stages of translation, a history of goblins by Matt king, the United States 1830-1850 by Turner, the economic growth of the United States by Douglass north (two books to get mad about), the blazing world and other writings by cavendish, and the public scholar by David Perry, and a book of poems and photographs by Greg slick.
A photo of an original black and white photo of a young Brigitte Bardot pensively standing behind some shrubbery.
The book a history of goblins by Matt king.
The setting sun is casting forth bright rays above the horizon through a line of pencil-thin clouds into the growing twilight. The hill, fringed with trees, is blacker than night.
The sky is a perfect pastel sketch from grey-blues that linger through a brief haze of yellow to peach and deep pinkish red at last, with a nodding cloud or three while the grass on the hill is thin at the horizon like a man losing his hair; a few dark shrubs are lilacs while a young elm is shaking its leaves blurry. The moon is almost full and huge for a phone photo. Like the white eye of a tiger staring out from a primitive painting. The near hill is frothy with bedstraw flowers.
If you look closely it’s a very day-for-night looking sky (thanks to the iPhone night mode) with piercing dark blue and big fluffy white clouds. In the clearing though, so you know it’s real night are the stars of the Big Dipper.
A photo of the book La Cucina Italiana Non Esiste by Alberto Grandi and Daniele Soffiati.
The meadow is dark and its plants seem to rise up against the sky, protest, perhaps. The big sloping hill is even darker. Another hill nods approvingly from a distance. Some purple clouds rest upon them, while above the sky is cracked like the underside of ice in the arctic sea. There but not visible the thousand fireflies winking in syncopated rhythm.
A big mown part of the meadow, then some tall grass and behind it a low hill and a copse of trees getting pretty tall now (they were young when we first got the land), and then just a sky of ponderous big clouds; it sprinkled a bit and was threatening rain all day. There is a small black and white Boston terrier in motion, after a ball, his ass at a focal point of the picture.
Just a field with tall grasses and goldenrod (not yet in flower) and it rises up to a young elm tree now about thirty feet tall. I planted it myself. In the distance some clotted white clouds and then a vast swath of uncertain moisture hazing out the sky. A low dark hill is thinking about rising up on its four legs to lumber off.
A very messy garden mainly Not quite flowering yet, except for some cosmos and some deeply purple and bursting bee balm; behind it a wall of blackberry bushes and behind that tall grass and meadow flowers and then a dark green hill and then the sky glazed, cloudy and white.
Close up of the cat staring into your soul from behind some flowers.
A meadow dotted with yellow flowers and daisies, white clover, etc, and sitting staring out from between some of the wildflowers a white and grey tabby cat absolutely convinced you cannot see him.
A photo showing three different stages of a wild columbine flower in one shot. The flower itself, fully emerged on the right is beautiful and strange, red with pink, some petals jutting up like arm bones while little dainty leaf-shaped petals make a short skirt out of which the pollen-encrusted lower parts dart exuberantly.
The field is tall and stretches out with its mix of grasses and weeds; flowers flash surprisingly from between the spaces—and so the whole is filled with bees and wasps and other pollinators getting a last drink. The slashing clouds are pink and violet, others scud along front gray and blue.
A photo dominated by the sky. The sky is deep blue around a bright white first-quarter moon. Some clouds drift and dart hear and there while lower clouds are more deliberately stretched and darkly dotting and dashing over the pale pink and orange verge. The hill is dark, the lawn slopes away from meadow. A young elm tree is standing alone.
A newly mown stretch of lawn with the field encroaching on all sides. A flower bed is just beginning to blossom out with deep purples. A small stretch of sky is pearly with clouds but all is bright and the shadows stretch long. In the shadows a Boston terrier happily lies, licking his face while an orange and blue ball rests between his white and black paw.
It’s a turkey vulture hanging out in a dead tree.
Absolutely dramatic shot of a small flower garden at the edge of a field. There are some very blight flowers that are early while the other flowers are still growing. The distant hill sleeps while a nearer hill has the aspect of an extinct giant lizard. The sky is purple and the clouds swirl like ostrich feathers.
A shot of a small house with many rooflines and a single light shining above the door. It is silhouetted black along with the hill behind it. Meanwhile a half-moon shines behind a halo. The clouds stretch languidly through the evening.
The hillside is at the base of this photo like a torn edge, perfectly silhouetted. The pale horizon darkens as you look up while some random clouds scud here and there. Meanwhile the largest block of clouds is diffuse, like dark smoke, and shaped like a great bird bending down with pink and red beak to snap at a poor sailor.
A torrid sky, with bright pinks and reds and all shades of blue and purple. The trees are silhouetted and dark green behind while the field is lush. Sumac trees looming on the left give the whole scene a genuine prehistoric feel.
Wildflowers photographed from above at dusk—an assortment of daisies and other smaller flowers. The daisies are scattered like stars in a constellation. It feels like part of a pre-Raphaelite painting or a Wm Morris print.
A view of our stairwell with a bunch of books and Lego and games and a model boat and a ceramic pheasant and more on the ledge. It looks very messy.
A photo of my manuscript with “Martin nodded.” circled and the word really and a question mark scratched accusingly next to it.
Had a bit of a storm yesterday afternoon. During a break in the storm a rainbow formed. Here is a picture of a huge lilac tree (200 years old, maybe) with a broken down old house with dirty white siding. The lilac tree is tall with a strong squiggly trunk and a second trunk fallen is growing outward from it. Lilacs form groves of genetically identical individuals linked by roots. This is probably that. The rainbow is a perfect arc connecting one part of the lilac to the other. The sky is gray with a sort of inner light.
Text from my gmail tab flashing that Google Drive has messaged me.
Heavily marked up text.
An iris blooming; its pale purple flower petals are arrayed like a tropical fish. The sun is caught just behind the top of the flower, shining bright white, the size of a quarter. The grass behind is neon green, and the trees are arrayed as if for marching behind. The sky is achingly blue. The iris leaves are bright green and sharp as knives.
A screenshot of a text from my Dad. It reads “Hey your uncle Craig said you made the Post”.
A very dramatic looking sky with several layers of clouds. The low clouds are stormy looking and have dark gray bottoms, while the upper clouds are diffuse. Contrails mark an X distinctively. The hills below are black.
With a strong vignette effect, a simple shot of the field at dusk, sloping gentle upward to a ridge where a lilac shrub and a young elm tree flank the sharp line of a farther hill from which the butter-yellow moon is slowly emerging into a purple sky.
A far hill and a near hill and a wild blackberry bramble with some sticks lashed together and leaning over a small garden plot. It is faded and moody, like an old Polaroid. The sky is full of glassy, icy clouds.
Here are con trails in pink and yellow, skating across the icy sky.
The moon was persistent this week. Here it is like a small eye while the clouds make an island chain huge and slapped across a big globe obscured by the green grass of the hill. Two lilacs peek over the edge, suspicious.
At last light a long lip or shelf of burgundy clouds hold back the deep blue of the night from the powder blue and faintly yellow below; the land is like a saw of black cutting into it. There is a planet and a star and one fainter star make a big kite. The whole has a heavy vignette of black, shaping the sky like a retina.
A shot of the waxing moon just above the gentle hill. The few clouds are pink in the sunset while the rest of the sky is a blue lake. A few shrubs and a single tree are small and black and shaggy at the base.
A sunset that bears a decent resemblance to the trans flag 🏳️‍⚧️
Overcast and grey. The sky is all cloud. The hills are clouds. The grass gently slopes away toward the hills. A kousa dogwood is just leafing out in the foreground with the arms of the blackberry bramble stretched towards it.
The clouds are like stretched cotton over the field which gently slopes with neon green in afternoon light. The copse is jaunty, almost painterly leaves. The hills are relaxed with dappled green, bright and dark. A figure in a worn sweatshirt stands in black wool cap looking down at a black and white Boston terrier in motion. Their shadows run tall in the mown grass.
A peacock-blue sky as day burns into night simmering orange and red at the lip of the earth. The clouds are blurry and faint gray and scudding along the bottom. At the aching height of the scene a first quarter moon with a halo as weather approaches. It will rain for three days straight.
A lumpy mound of earth covered with shaggy grasses in front of a grove of trees. There’s a hole. It’s dark and has dead grasses hanging around it, making it even more menacing.
The moon like a fingernail clipping, tiny, tilted, and floating in the sinking blue. The hill is a silhouette. The clouds are thin and gray. Restless. The sky below them is almost yellow. Moody.
Some trees on the horizon. A lip of last light is orange and green. The night blue sky looms with a vignette effect. The moon is a glowing orb, with Venus her close companion.
This is like a living William Morris print. White bleeding hearts in the front. Coral bells. Solomon’s seal. Pink bleeding hearts. Lilac branches. Dappled light.
The picnic table on a small stone patio with mown grass and a satisfied looking Boston terrier. In the distance are some trees and hills.
The picnic table is turned over and a shovel is leaning on it. The grass is dug up to one side partially, and a Boston terrier sits behind the scene, smugly holding an orange ball between his paws.
On a gentle green slope before a blackberry thicket stands a man pensively with a straw hat, chambray shirt, and brown pants. He is leaning on a shovel. He is small from the distance and looks lean and hungry. He is contemplating a bit of digging. A small elm tree stretches just above his hat on the hillside, like an idea. The sky is deep blue and fluffed with big, happy clouds.
A tarot card reading; in a line up the center are the devil, death crossed by the hanged man, and the tower. On either side are the four and five of pentacles.