"Roger, I chose the cliché deliberately to establish the speakers’s weary, jaded mood."
But how is the reader to know that? As a general matter, I have found in workshops that many poets tend to think that when they use clichés, it's justified in some way, even though they agree in principle that clichés are to be avoided (just like many poets seem to think that when they use archaisms, it's okay somehow, though they agree it's not generally a good thing). There's always going to be an excuse to use a cliché, and all of us are powerfully attracted to them, but resisting that attraction is big part of the reason we read and write poetry in the first place.
By resisting particulars, you are already keeping the reader at a distance. Clichés only increase that distance. When you tell us non-specific things, and you use clichés to tell us those things, it's hard to get an emotional response from the reader, even with your killer last sentence.
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