This seems to work:

use warnings;
use strict;
use IO::Socket;

my $socket = new IO::Socket::INET (
    LocalHost => 'localhost',
    LocalPort => '8888',
    Proto => 'tcp',
    Listen => 1,
    Reuse => 1,
);
die "Could not create socket: $!\n" unless $socket;

$|++;
while (1) {
    my $incoming = $socket->accept();
    while(<$incoming>) {
        print $_;
    }
    print "\nNext session.\n";
}

close($socket);
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Here is how I run it as a daemon in Unix:

$ nohup ./listen.pl >listen.log 2>listen.log &
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After it is running, here I am testing it out:

$ telnet localhost 8888
Trying ::1...
telnet: connect to address ::1: Connection refused
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
You there?
^]
telnet> quit
Connection closed.
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And here is the output showing up in my log:

$ cat listen.log 
You there?

Next session.
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And here is the process still running afterwards.

$ jobs
[1]+  Running    nohup ./listen.pl > listen.log 2> listen.log &
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