The Cheerfulness Challenge called upon contestants to craft a cheerful composition containing these 20 cantankerous words.
drenched, socket, furrowed, butchering, searing, blood, damp skin, spoil, boil, winces, clots, scalp, plies, plucking, gutting, stain, spalting, sliced, and shattered.
There were a number of excellent entries but one stood apart. Here is our worthy winner:
At the Foreign Anguish Bar & Grill, by Carol Chittenden

A troll walks into a bar one night
She slams her fist on the spalting plank.
“A bucket of blood,” she shouts so hoarse
“And shatter a chicken,” she yells to Hank.
Hank boils the concoction of murky stain,
While plucking and gutting the bird;
His damp skin drenched with clots of gore,
Asks her cheerfully, “What’s the word?”
Her one good socket fixes him hard,
With butchering gaze and searing sigh.
Her furrowed scalp puckers all tight.
He winces and wipes the drizzle dry.
“Damned entropy sliced my prey last week.
“It plied me with drink for nineteen days.
“Vegetarians spoil so fast,” she growls.
“No time at all til a fresh one decays.”
Kudos to Carol! Her prize is en route.
A prize is also pending for our runner-up.
Ambrose
In the depth of a forest named Nodd
Aging Ambrose felt awesomely odd
He decided he’d try
To discover just why
“Will this spoil my hardened facade?”
All this butchering, gutting and plucking inside
If it weren’t oddly awesome, he’d surely have cried!
Clots of strange stuff
Were making it rough
What was worse, it was searing his pride!
Of the thing neath his scalp he did query
“Might you have intellectual theory?”
Then arms up-stretched
True wisdom he fetched
Without one minuscule worry
A socket protruding his plies of damp skin
Soon led him to see foreign blood furrowed in
Now Ambrose felt drenched
As it furrowed and wrenched
And in spite of it all he did grin!
“Whilst shattered and sliced, this slow boil is vaulting!”
And seeing bright stain spreading beauty not halting
He winces with glee
“I’m so glad I’m a tree!
Look here! Oh my goodness! I’m spalting!”
-ch
Thanks to everyone who entered!