'You're the most ept, ert, choate and dolent person I know -
how do you manage it? '

'Excuse me...? ? '

Words are fun.
If your child's school report
declared him or her
'inept, inert, inchoate, and indolent'
you'd have a fairly clear picture
of how things are;
the negatives survive,
as more useful
(ah, sad reflection...)

and then there are the words
that have reversed their meanings
by some really interesting
but alas never yet charted
human failing:
'nice' once meant stupid and ignorant;
'silly' once meant blissful...

But today I'm savouring 'disgruntled':

that is, dissatisfied, and angry with it;
a state not unknown
to a consumer society;
so are you gruntled today -
satisfied and happy?

but it's not quite as easy as that:
if you're gruntled, then officially you're
'uttering little grunts'...

would that be while DIYing
somewhere back of the sink,
or pigging out so fast you can hardly
make time to breathe,
or perhaps being, uh,
sexually favoured?

Words are fun
especially for poets -
Shakespeare made up more than anyone
just like that
without some egghead like Bacon (aha!) or Jonson
looking over his shoulder and saying
you can't say that
they won't know what you mean
in the low-price seats...

Words are fun;
give them a good shake of the kaleidoscope
and they just might play nose-to-tail
and make a poem

though not today it seems

Michael Shepherd

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/have-a-good-gruntle/