I'm sorry for how bad it is, folks, I think my poetry gland has the 'flu or something. Not unusually.
Valediction
I love to be the moment man:
the one who's there when all the lights go out,
and asking questions to your living night
you find no answers, only windows
open to the dark and winding streets.
You stare them down until your eyes are old,
until the spark that saw the end
of every single road your life could take
is gone, is faded into inside rooms
and cluttered desks at which you wake.
The premonition fever-chills are still:
your temperature is stable
and your second sight is gray.
Around the bed your armoured knights stand guard
in rusting steel, their crests all fallen at your feet
and tarnished with disuse and need.
How long since Lancelot arose and spoke your name?
Beneath their shattered visors lie the ghosts
you used to know, and silently they call
for laughter or a friendly hand
that stretches out with resurrection in its palm.
But only you can make that choice:
so long ago you put yourself to bed,
and pulled the covers up around your head
to try and catch a passing dream,
to weave a caring face, a pair of arms
that holds you gently when there's no-one really there.
And when that dream is gone? Without your knights,
without your friends you take your sword in hand
and go alone against the ogres and the trolls,
the giants of the night that drive you to your knees
besides your bed with massive blows
to pray, and weep, and never find release.
I love to be the moment man,
the one who's there when all your lights go out,
who tells you in the night one simple truth:
to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
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139,468 Literary Works • 672,573 Reviews
I don't think it's bad at all! I really liked it, although I'm not sure who the speaker is addressing; my ideas about that changed every time I read the poem.
I don't have much to comment on.
I think it might be a bit easier to read if you add in 'when' before 'asking questions'.
I really like this section, but I think 'spark' could be swapped for something similar. 'Spark' doesn't seem like something that could 'fade'. It's more likely to disappear suddenly.
The last line doesn't say what it wants to. They don't need the armour and so on, but if you look again at how it's worded 'tarnished with (disuse and) need', it says they do (and doesn't really make sense). Maybe 'tarnished through disuse and lack of need'?
I think that should be a full stop. The second part of the sentence isn't connected enough, I don't think.
I think you could find a better verb. 'Fight' or 'struggle' even. This seems to run on a bit so you could maybe split it into two sentences.
That's all!
As I said already, I thought it was great - imaginative with brilliant imagery.