The Emperor of Ice Cream - Wallace Stevens

Ok so, the poem first seemed intriguing because I thought it was going to be like a little kid poem. It reminded me of some book I read when I was younger that had to do with ice cream. But I don't see what the poem has to do with ice cream at all. I'm starting to think it's a metaphor for something, but it's kind of hard to figure out what. The second stanza sort of makes me think of death with somebody is cold, and dumb. If it is about death, then I'm assuming, that the emperor of ice cream is maybe the emperor of death, because life, like ice cream doesn't last forever - it melts away. I do like how the poem is started...it really grabs my attention and and leads me into...well into what I really have no idea about, but I just like that first line anyway. I also really don't understand concupiscent curds. When I looked concupiscent up in the dictionary it said something about sexual desire. How are curds sexually desired? Is there a second meaning to the word curd? Also, why would you bring flowers in newspapers ? I picture the ink from the newspaper coming off on the flowers, making them ugly and poisoning them...wait! Maybe, if this is about death, then the flowers kind of signify death in that sense, because somebody is dying, like the flowers would die from having ink smeared all over them. Maybe somebody ate too much ice cream, the emperor of ice cream perhaps, and therefor died from it.

This poem just got way too much fun.

I don't know why, but I do really like this poem, even though I really have no idea what it means. I like the literary devices Stevens used, like the alliteration in Line 3. I also do like how it's not rhyming...I grew kind of tired of rhyming poems. And maybe not knowing what the poem means is all the joy in it. He uses fun words and images...if only I could put them all together.