This Then
This Then - meaning Summary
Resigned Longing and Small Comforts
Bukowski presents a weary, repetitive view of love and desire where encounters blur into the same disappointments. The speaker admits to lowering expectations—seeking comfort, sex, and a minor love—while time thins and routine takes over. Domestic details and drinking underscore loneliness and waiting, culminating in a bleak wish that death might offer relief from this small, persistent dissatisfaction. The tone is resigned, plain, and starkly candid.
Read Complete Analysesit's the same as before or the other time or the time before that. here's a cock and here's a cunt and here's trouble. only each time you think well now I've learned: I'll let her do that and I'll do this, I no longer want it all, just some comfort and some sex and only a minor love. now I'm waiting again and the years run thin. I have my radio and the kitchen walls are yellow. I keep dumping bottles and listening for footsteps. I hope that death contains less than this.
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