Shadorma 344.
Orange frowns.
Lemon grimaces.
Who could like
these candies?
Such hard little dramas. Look!
I’ve broken a tooth.
12/15/20
Shadorma 345.
the red thirst
for getting even
the venom
stirred with rage
Pinch the vile ingredients
The cake tastes like guilt
12/14/20
Shadorma 346.
the misprint
serendipity
that led me
straight to you
choose the wish over reason
let some dreams come true
12/14/20
Claudia McGill Writes Poetry, Did You Know That? 
I love the phrase “hard little dramas” to describe the candy. My Gran used to take us to a confectioners shop that had been running since at least Edwardian times with, as it seemed, very little change over the decades. The hard candy – what we called boilings – were very hard so we were constantly warned to “suck, don’t bite” and the merest sound of a crunch would make my mother have a conniption.
If cakes can be baked with love and food be invested with soul then I think it can also be baked with malicious feelings and imbued with nastiness.
I’ve never liked hard candies. To me, they thought too much of themselves – popular they were, but upon acquaintance, distasteful!
I was fond of some – Soor Plooms, Cola Cubes, Parma Violets, Aniseed Twists – but most boilings I am – pun very much intended – bah humbug about.
I really like the names, though.