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Occasional epilogues. On being reasonable

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The Poetry Foundation defines the occasional poem as “a poem written to describe or comment on a particular event and often written for a public reading [1].”

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Clearly, circumstances constrain this type of writing, and one may assume that composing occasional pieces is not an easy task. When such poems are commissioned, the topic is not the author’s choice; we might therefore think that some unfamiliarity with the subject matter would be legitimate. Yet a reasonable degree of intimacy with the theme is precisely what is expected from occasional texts. For such writing, one needs to be careful, know the facts, be accurate.

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Here are three occasional epilogues to two articles and one advertisement chosen somewhat haphazardly in Moderne Welt, Illustrierte Monatsschrift für Kunst, Literatur, Mode, 1922, Jahrgang 3, Heft 8. The only criterion was the occasional author’s spontaneous sense of being reasonably capable of scrutinizing and reverberating the texts appearing in this Palais des Beaux Arts publication.

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Page 14 / Frankl-Hochwarth, Bruno.

“Schloss Pötzleinsdorf.” 14-17.

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Synopsis:

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The first page of Bruno Frankl-Hochwarth’s article summarizes F. P. Gaheis’ description of an excursion in bucolic Pötzleinsdorf that was published in Wanderings and Strolls in the Areas around Vienna (1801-1807), and argues that, in 1921-1922, the park of Pötzleinsdorf, although it is now “dormant like Sleeping Beauty,” still retains its “wonderful magic.”

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Occasional epilogue, 2026:

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Porcelain and timeworn bears –. A castle, a park, a school.

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The dubious thoughts of happiness while playing on two carousels, four seesaws, one trampoline, and in two soccer cages under the scrutiny of statues, a singing quartet rescued from the ruins of the Ringtheater in Vienna, now disbanded across the park.

We should not always trust education. Woodpeckers with poppy-like red crowns are park-dwellers in Pötzleinsdorf and not a rare species.

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We walk through remnants of temples and pavilions. We think of pleasures and of women and men who were cast away.

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In 1802, there were 33 houses in Pötzleinsdorf, 173 in 1890, 1750 in 2001.

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A tiny meal, a children’s tea set, a certain daintiness, gravel on the path, crawling animals we do not wish to have in sight.

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Castles sold, castles stolen, the prisms of a day outside, resounding cheers, a chill. Will it rain?

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The bears of Pötzleinsdorf are more legends than signs. We dream of signs, we dread them. For a second, we would rather see the unchallenged grace of swans on a pond. Any pond. This, however, is only a fleeting thought.

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As we are told, a wilderness in a castle’s park is a more enduring scene than dinner parties among bankers, evening strolls on landscaped grounds, or the freshness of air a few kilometers away from the city.

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Page 20 /Lehner, Rudolf Julius. “Himmel und Erde.” 20.

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Synopsis:

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A young couple is about to leave for their honeymoon. Her dream is to travel in a stagecoach on a “poplar-lined country road” in “the light green of May blossoms.” And here she is, sitting on a train in a loud, smoke-choked station. Her husband a stranger reading the newspaper. It’s raining; her companion’s only conversation is to comment that author Joseph von Eichendorff died sixty years ago.

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Occasional epilogue, 2026:

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Rudolf Julius Lehner wrote poems, served the world from Klosterneuburg, and died in 1922. Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff had a castle in Poland where he often wandered; he too wrote – about wandering, rustling trees, transient realities, mountains and fields, those starry nights.

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Theodor Adorno on Eichendorff: “An affirmative tone in his work, a tone that glorifies existence as such” (76).

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Adorno on Eichendorff: “The modern element in Eichendorff[,] genuinely anti-conservative: a renunciation of the aristocratic, a renunciation even of the dominion of one’s own ego” (82).

Today.

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The castle is a ruin; realities do not materialize any better; we take the train to go to Vienna; we take it too when we leave. We listen to silence as we walk; we know the gentle touch of solitude.

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^{*Adorno, Theodor W. “In Memory of Eichendorff.” Notes to Literature. New York: Columbia UP, 2019. 74-95.}‍

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Back page / “Grosse Ausstellung von Gemälde und Aquarellen zeitgenössichen Künstler ‘Palast der schönen Künste’.”

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Synopsis:

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The Palais des Beaux Arts invites the public to an exhibition of contemporary paintings and watercolors. The event is free and artworks are for sale.

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Occasional epilogue, 2026:

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124 artists listed alphabetically; no first names except for Amadeus, Rud., Math., Lud., Hans, W. V., Hans, Lud.; no name starting with I, Q, X, Y; about 2,000 works.

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In 1935, a world away, a modern world away, Marianne Moore tells us of “the pine green of Tyrol” changed to “peacock blue and guinea gray” (5), of “blueberries and spiderwort, striped grass, lichens, sunflowers, asters, daisies” and how we would like them to cohabit with “banyan, frangipani, or jack-fruit trees” (6).

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In a poem to the older author, Elizabeth Bishop invites Moore to visit her – “Please come flying” (82). In the 1920s, she writes of “dusty, pale moths,” “insects’ wings” (211), “subaqueous stillness,” and “a moon-green pool” (214).

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At Löwengasse 47, Vienna, golden flowers burnished against dark backgrounds coalesce with their purple and indecisively red counterparts; green, very green pastures under veiled skies permeate the surrounding mountains; washes of pallid faces and sad memories come out of the walls and, for a moment, make us feel (almost) wistful. A vertical world affirms itself in a city where hills are round and soft, almost as low as the river that carved its bed here and there – a river now straightened out, a clean ribbon. Inside Löwengasse 47, one may acquire works by Rudolf von Alt and find their details remarkable and their colors lavish. Across from Löwengasse 47 is Rudolf von Alt-Platz, designed in 1905, home to prosperous buildings.

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^{*Elizabeth Bishop. The Complete Poems. 1927-1979. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1989.}

^{*Marianne Moore. The Complete Poems of Marianne Moore. New York: Macmillan, 1982.}

^{[1] https://www.poetryfoundation.org/education/glossary/occasional-poem}