Please take all of this advice with a pinch of salt large enough to embalm the entire population of Europe.
Overall thoughts- I struggled to critique this because I couldn’t find much wrong with it, honestly. Prose is excellent, use of imagery powerful and contributes very well to the overall message, which I managed to pick up after skimming back over it after my first reading so no problems there (I’m usually pretty blind to meaning). I have a few word choice suggestions based on how I write but apart from grammar nothing that objectively needs changing.
-The cliff section is fine- very good, in fact, and the opening part of it with the confused description of the cliff as at once limestone and a trash heap really helps to convey the message of human waste becoming an imposed part of the environment rather than just presenting pollution as simply bad. This perspective is really engaging and well executed. However, one potential problem is that the tense shifts from present to past to present to past to present between paragraphs (starting with "I very nearly did stop there") which, while it makes sense as the protagonist reflecting back on their situation from a point in the future, reads a little oddly as the past tense isn't used anywhere else (unless I missed something).
-SPAG- a few minor things which I've noted
-It definitely makes sense- as I said, even I got the message and there is a very clear progression of place throughout the story, from the neighbourhood to the beach to the cliff to the house, which really helps to give the reader something to anchor onto in the often quite abstract and surreal descriptions
-As for “stilted and disjointed”, while there were a few lines that I, with my dubious grasp of the English language, can point at and
I hate them, you know.
Clear introduction to the theme of disillusionment with nature and the contrast with how the speaker feels is also clear, I think. Also a good introduction to the idea of self-hatred in here, unless I read that wrong, and how the thoughts of leaving this depressive, cynical fugue state and the idea of natural beauty that has been maligned by changing human standards and negligence acting as a reminder that there are still good things in the world being are both inconvenient and aggravating to the speaker. So it’s good, basically
They can be as meager as the simple white maggotlike appendage that first emerges from the brown pebble of a seedling, and can be as thick and broad as a bicep like with yucca.
Sentence is a little long and run-on, and maybe switch “and can be” for “or”. “like with” also feels a bit too colloquial, maybe switch it for “as with” or something similar.
Grass and manicured leafy sculptures became the peak of gardening, and dandelions found a new home in the category of weeds.
Maybe just “leaf”? Positive connotations of “leafy” as an adjective contrasting the negative depiction of said leaf sculptures is good though
Best to travel along the beach, then. There isn’t shade there, never was, and I can’t swim because the water is polluted with ship oil, trash, and cyanobacteria blooms so severe that the water colours red like blood in summer. But I go there anyway, because at least with the sea breeze the air will be cooler. It’s the shorter way around, anyway.
I really like this paragraph- both how the surreal image of the “cyanobacteria” blooms contrasts with earlier surreal imagery with how it’s actually real and how out of place the clinical, scientific word is with the rest of the prose, as well as the link to the idea of the speaker’s mental state and how they feel the need to confront themselves with humanity’s effect on nature as a punitive measure.
It is grey. That’s all.
Maybe “it’s” instead of “it is” to reflect “that’s”? Or the other way around?
Did you know that roses all used to look the same?
Maybe “all roses used to look the same” instead
They were simplistic , fragrant, beautiful in their own right, yet so very violent, growing hardy between tough rocks and hard sand, soaking up the saltwater and expelling the minerals through their leaves and roots, cutting and maiming with their many-directioned thorns like blackberry bines enough that they grew a taste for blood.
Maybe “simple” instead of “simplistic”. This sentence is also quite long
But then, who am I to police the ways of walking the beach full stop here My way may be different from the ways of others.
These two sentences sound a little clumsy, especially with how well the rest of the prose flows
The sad thing is, I will likely forget this chain of thought, along with this revelation, in just a few minutes. I am incredibly forgetful these days.
Maybe paragraph space the “I am incredibly forgetful” line out to match the “my mind is so empty these days” line?
I very nearly did stop there. It was not the dandelions, though, that made me continue. I have been on this path before, and I will walk this path again – again and again and again, perhaps for as long as I live, or perhaps only for as long as I know this to be the only way through life. Once I have found another path, perhaps I will never walk this one the same way again, if ever.
This paragraph is a little run on but not too badly
Though it is blisteringly hot now, so hot that the dark stones under my thick soles feel as though they are orange coals, I know that soon the sea will win the battle over temperature with the sun: should I stay longer, I will get my wish of chill.
“Wish of chill” sounds a little odd to me personally
As I think this, I know: this memory is ephemeral and contained to this place alone, like a billboard you never remember existing and only recall seeing when you read it while stopped at a traffic light.
Maybe lose “existing” and “seeing” for concision. “Contained to this place alone” also sounds odd
I smell the dandelions intermingled with the sharp fragrance of roses on the wind, rotting garbage before and above me, and the deep, earthy aroma of fertilizer and sandstone mixed in with the heavy life of the sea.
Maybe just “mixed” in stead of “mixed in”
I have left before, and I can do it again, and I may have to do so for the rest of my life: endlessly enter and leave and reeneter and releave the beach.
Maybe use dashes for “reenter” and “releave”.
The beach mad made me cynical, unwell, sick of mind.
Is “mad made” a typo (had made)? Because it sounds odd but also works in context.
All rote motions, mind not yet fully gone from the beach – my body has left, but it is taking time, as it always does, for the rest of me to catch up. Everything takes time in this world, including healing.
The last line isn’t quite as strong as the line before it imo, maybe change it?
Personal thoughts on the ending- the fact that the protagonist end up using human-made, artificial things as a symbol of their return from cynicism suggests that not all artificial things are bad as long as they do not actively destroy nature or are discarded as trash, which nicely reflects their disgust and guilt at the pollution throughout the poem. Also a hopeful ending is always nice