Oh, Yes

Oh, Yes - meaning Summary

Loneliness and Belated Regret

This short poem states a bleak observation: solitude is not the worst condition, but recognizing that fact often takes decades. Bukowski presents a late, painful awareness that understanding solitude comes too late for most, and he frames the irreversible moment—too late—as the poem's greatest horror. The tone is resigned and cynical, reflecting the poet's recurring concerns with loneliness, wasted time, and missed chances. Because of its brevity and blunt assertion, the poem reads like an epigram about regret and the passage of life.