Joseph Gordon Macleod
Hesperornis

From Tether 4, page 33

HESPERORNIS

Alone, therefore of loneliness unaware,
Spreads her webs on the cake-ice igneum
Vast.   Over her dazzled retinae
Hood draws for shield from the helian
Glare by green wave unalleviate
Cast.   Stretches supper vertebrae
Ere mayhap lamineous wanderer
Palaeolithic armoured amphibian
Fast below her lazy vigility
Bolting escape.   Alert on a pinnacle
Sole raised point of level monotony,
Mastering all (all as yet unaërial)
Gnashes teeth as saws that reciprocate,
Hungry for prey from proved inability :
Drastic, divine, has braved omniominous,
Dared what the poets dare, victorious
Over age-static exposed floor-denizens.
Last of her age, the urge of the coming,
Urged, is becoming First of the future,
The hope that achieves what Men call failure,
The past.