Urdu and English: Closing Time, by Lorette C. Luzajic, Translated by Saad Ali & Nashwa Yaqoob Butt

The Bohemians, by Christian Krohg (Norway) 1885

Closing Time

I’m just a baby, but won’t know it for another twenty years. I’m loud and brash to cover up the lost and shy. I’m on a patio on Davie Street with a new friend in my new city. The photographer. He is long and thin and orange. He takes photos of weird mannequins and gum wads on sidewalks. I yell at him for ordering lamb shish kebab, tell him he is a murderer and he will drop dead of jammed arteries before we get to know each other. He is more shy, and even more damaged than I am. But he is ten years older and has lived enough to laugh it off. He likes me anyways. We both have a penchant for oddities and for characters. We both love the poetry we find in the cracks. We both love Leonard Cohen. And I am not the first vegan he has met in Vancouver.

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Urdu Translation

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Transliteration

Christian Krohg (Norway) ki tasweer Bo Pema ke Pashinde (1885) ki tarz per 

Waqt-e-Ikhtitam

Main mehz aik bachi hoon, magar mujhe ye m’aloom nahein ho paye ga aglay bees saal tak. Main purshoor aur bedharak hon gumshuda aur shermilay pun ko dhaampne ke liye. Main Devi Street ke aik aangan mein aik naye dost ke saath apne naye shehr mein hoon. Jo ke tasweer banana ka mahir hai. Woh lamba, dobla aur naaranji rangat ka hai. Woh aajeeb potloon aur pagdandiyoon per chipke huwe gum ke tokroon ki tasaweer utaarta hai. Main uss per ghilaati hoon dombe ke ghost ke shish kebab ka aarder dene per, ussy batata hoon ke woh aik qatil hai aur who munjamid sheryanoon ke saath murda haalat mein hoo ga iss se pehle ke hamari jaan pehchaan ho. Woh aur ziada shirmila hai, aur mujh se bhi ziada kharaab haal mein. Magar woh das saal bara hai aur kaafi gi chuka hai iss baat ko hans ker taalne ke liye. Woh mujhe pasand zaroor kerta hai. Hum doonoon aajeeb-o-ghareeb chizoon aur kirdaroon ki terf rojhaan rekhte hain. Hum doonoon sie shaa’ari behad pasand kerte hain joo shigaafoon mein milti hai. Hum doonoon Leonard Cohen ko behad pasand kerte hain. Aur mein pehli sabzi khor nahein jis se woh Vancouver mein mila hai.

Lorette C. Luzajic
translated by Saad Ali & Nashwa Yaqoob Butt

This poem first appeared (in English) in The Neon Rosary: tiny prose poems (Cyberwit Books).  

Saad Ali (b. 1980 CE in Okara, Pakistan) has been brought up and educated in the United Kingdom and Pakistan. He is a bilingual poet-philosopher and literary translator. His new collection of poems is titled Owl Of Pines: Sunyata (AuthorHouse, 2021). He has translated Lorette C. Luzajic’s ekphrastic poetry and micro/flash fictions into Urdu: Lorette C. Luzajic: Selected Ekphrases: Translated into Urdu(2023). He is a regular contributor to The Ekphrastic Review. He has had poems published in The Mackinaw and Synchronized Chaos. His work has been nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology. He has had ekphrases showcased at an Art Exhibition, Bleeding Borders, curated at the Art Gallery of Grande Prairie in Alberta, Canada. Some of his influences include: Vyasa, Homer, Attar, Rumi, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Kafka, Tagore, Lispector, et alia. He enjoys learning different languages, travelling by train, and exploring cities/towns on foot. To learn further about his work, please visit: www.saadalipoetry.com; www.facebook.com/owlofpines.


Nashua Yaqoob Butt (b. 1984 C.E.) is from the Gujrat District, Pakistan. She is a teacher, social worker, and poetess. She holds an MA in Mass Communication from The Allama Iqbal Open University, Pakistan. She has authored two collections of poetry: Luminous Butterfly (2021), and Solitude: Silence and Self Identity (2023). Currently, she teaches Urdu and Social Studies (Secondary Level/Grade 9 & 10) at the Jinnah Public School & College, Gujrat, Pakistan. She has also been a part of a local Social Welfare Organisation (working for the empowerment of women in the region) as a Crochet Instructor. Her influences include: Rumi, Sylvia Plath, Ernest Hemingway, Amrita Pritam, and Rabindranath Tagore – to name a few. In her spare time, she pursues gardening, sketching/painting, writing, and crocheting. You can learn more about her work via her Facebook Author Page: www.nashwayaqoobbutt.
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