November 7th, 1985 Grigory kept the window rolled down because he was fighting the Sandman. A cold Siberian gale whipped through thin strands of brown hair which stretched from the top of his forehead to just below his bald crown, like long clumps of seaweed reaching out over an empty seabed. A contraband copy of… Read More Andreiana ~ fiction by Phillip McCollum
The target was coming into view. This operation had been rushed but the pieces had fallen into place and there was no reason not to expect success. Less than a week ago we had learned of a plan to sell the product from a small shop near the outskirts of Seattle. This was our chance… Read More Lucky Strike ~ fiction by Stevan Fisher
It starts … With a woman Beyond youthful giggles Accent thick Old-country rhythm A life’s experiences Wisps of gray Glasses perched It starts … With a boy Bright eyes glimmering Gloomy bodega Coins in hand Jingle, fade He dances foot to foot Asks for a Coke Quick and shy It starts … With a car… Read More It starts … ~ poetry by Mark Paxson
beautiful eyes see the ugliness of the world a [tall] woman in a blue polka dot dress stand[s] alone by a window in a library[. She’s] looking off somewhere, hands holding each other, nervous and unresponsive to the voice that’s speaking to her. decisions [are] being made but no options [are] being offered. calculated mistakes… Read More Constellations Ms (folio#073.119.82) ~ poetry by William Jackson
Theme statement: Time travel is impossible. Stop even thinking about it! Introduction For the past 140 years, the imagineers of western civilization have dwelled unrealistically on the idea of traveling through time (forward or backward) to observe or even change events. It’s never going to happen. For millennia, in fact, as far back as ancient… Read More On the Impediments to Time Travel ~ an essay by Alyson Woods
No one asked me to do this, but I think it’s a public service that needs to be performed so I’ve taken it on. I’m a cell phone Luddite – there, I said it – and see no reason to be connected to the internet at all times, or tracked by governmental entities through the… Read More The Pay Phone Project ~ fiction by Giles McDonald
Inaugural address of Donald J. Trump, January 20, 2017 Elizabeth Krause is a graphic artist from Portland, Oregon. She created “Triumph” with an online word cloud generator. (Right-click on the image to view full-size.)
You gotta talk the talk ’cuz it’s a no-brainer. Don’t go down for the count after drawing a blank. The jig is up! Gotta be quick on the draw or go back to square one, Know what I’m sayin’? Ride ’em, cowboy! But when the plot thickens and it’s down to the wire, We gotta… Read More From a Random Phrase Generator ~ poetry by Hallie Dickerson
1 I paid the entrance fee To Elvis Aaron Presley’s mortal Grave, there in Memphis, Tennessee. What did I learn there? He was thee and me. 2 I tried to walk down To the sylvan river Wye. But the field was muck And mined with cow dung, And clouding the air, flies. 3 Inevitably we… Read More Five Pentagraphs ~ poetry by Kevin Brennan
The idea got into his head that nothing is for certain. What is for certain is that not much can be concluded from so-called reality, but since nothing is for certain even that is uncertain. So, better not to jump to conclusions. Then while Googling randomly one day he came upon the name of Pyrrho,… Read More The Wisdom of Pyrrho ~ fiction by Sung Lalata
The finest and the fattest is for their board, But she would rather take refuge in a convent. Moved to compassion by the anxiety, His levity and petulance, perpetually breaking out. Exhausted with his various exertions, He resolved to trust to the sagacity of his horse. And she would have compassion upon them into a… Read More Hidden verse in Ivanhoe ~ poetry by Nathaniel P. Mahar
… a squalid little squid of a bar possessing all the moist charm of a toxic fart laid at the root of the nose. The Three Jolly Maggots, the sign said, and offered to the discerning pubic eye three creatures eerily glowing, and these I unquestionably supposed to be the maggots in question. One of… Read More The Dreamer’s Dream ~ fiction by Boaz MacNutt
So I’m off social media. I did it. I went in too deep, and now I’m just out. Because it flattened me. It started with Facebook. It’s like only Zuckerberg really understood what was going to be happening, and had to happen, and that is that people would start connecting. But he might not have… Read More Tiddlywinks ~ an essay by Krista McCarthy
Sonnet XX* A woman’s face with nature’s own hand painted, Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion; You look hot, girl. A woman’s gentle heart, but not acquainted With shifting change, as is false women’s fashion: Most women are bitches, but you a’ight. An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling, Like,… Read More A Shakespeare sonnet edited for modern Americans ~ poetry by Wim Leflore
Pru Marais is a poet and educator who lives in the eastern half of the country, though she has not told us which country.
At the outset here, we’re making the choice not to decorate contributions with images, unless the image is made and provided by the author. It seems to us that ubiquitous stock photos all over the internet lower the value of images and detract from a more important element: the writing itself. We see, in fact,… Read More A note on images
As if his last novel hadn’t done enough damage, Braith Pindrop is back with a new book exploiting the nascent national fad of ferret racing. As far as this reviewer can tell, the ferret-racing fad is only three months old, suggesting that Pindrop’s book, The Sleek Ones, was rushed out. Derrick Dewlap is a lovable… Read More A Day at the Races ~ a faux book review by Kevin Brennan
The Disappointed Housewife is a literary journal for writers, and readers, who are seeking something different. We like the idiosyncratic, the iconoclastic, the offbeat, the hard-to-categorize. Out of the universe of fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction, we want to attract work that plays with form and presentation. Work that’s not just outside the box but… Read More Editor’s foreword
