There is one poem which I am particularly fond of, however. As I was drunkenly telling Idealjetsam last night (shortly before I leapt over the table and bit him on the shoulder for disparaging the works of Dostoevsky), I find the following poem to be everything I think good poetry should be: surreal, haunting, picturesque, and, unlike the vast majority of poems written since time immemorial, completely devoid of pretension.
Lads and lasses, I give you Wallace Stevens's The Emperor of Ice-Cream:
Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
Now go ahead and marinate on that for a minute.
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