How can I make my poetry easier to understand?

[thedaveformula]

So I do like the lines I come up with, I do think I can write to an extent in terms of coming up with original ways of looking at the world. There are lines I like

"I went to the bar and ordered a hangover"

"My life was an open casket"

"Caught in the rhythm of emotion"

"confronting my staid faculties"

"i went from Cary Grant
to being Carried away"

ETC. I like my little lines.

HOWEVER, the actual poems are nothing but a collection of these lines, and they're not making any sense in terms of a message or structure. I only just realised this.

How can I aim towards a specific message, so that the reader can understand what the poem is about? I come up with lines that I like, and then once I have enough of them I fit them all together into a poem. So what I end up with is a bag of ideas and not a structured poem.

Do you have any advice for me on writing poetry that the reader will have a chance at understanding?

Thank you.

[Salaam]

I could ask myself the same question. I seem to make heads itchy.

I'd suggest drawing a poem out of your 'one liners' and not meshing them all together. Try seeing beyond the initial statement and grow a story from it, or find some kind of moral, philosophical or metaphysical line and trace it out. Find it a context. Once you get the ball rolling there'll be no stopping you.

Great lines btw.

[Henry P]

I agree with Salaam.
See if you can link your very best lines together somehow, or think about the person, feeling or event inspired them, and try to explain it. A good thought-provoking ending is satisfying too.
But remember that being easily understood is not essential in modern poetry. Look at TS ELiot's Wasteland or Four Quartets. Their impressiveness in part lies in their very difficulty and obliqueness. what matters is the resonance or originality of the language. Like yourself, I don't always agree with this approach, but sublety and saying it "slant" are the prevailing styles.
Don't give up- play with your ideas into what pleases you. Not many of us will be published, so a sense of satisfaction is important: if you think your poem is genuinely good, that's great. Someone else probably will think the same. Good luck.

[TroostAvenue]

Both Salaam and Henry P stole my words. Regarding obliqueness, aka beyond the understanding of normal humans, if that's what comes out of your head, fine, but I won't be reading it. Not to say, of course, that others will not.

Every mind will write differently. The books tell you about researching your subject, writing outlines, etc., but that would bore me to death and i would never have started in the first place. I just get an idea, a lot like your favorite lines, and it tells me what the possibilities are for the second line. Now I have a topic and it just goes from there, as Salaam says. If I may, I'll take your first line (my favorite):

My life had been an open casket / till you closed it / .... Now you have a story about some poor guy who never found love until now, but then she deceived him, leaving him either hopeless or, in the gloom of the closed casket, able to understand his predicament. Alternatively, a potential lover might see you, metaphorically, as dead or dying, and, realizing that that would be a loss, leans in and plants a kiss, like in sleeping beauty.

Of course, that was easy enough for me to say, but my point is that you have already found some very good starting points. Treat them as such.

[Jermac]

I think there are two essential elements in composing a poem. One is to find a specific subject, and stay with that subject. The other element is to find a rhythm within you.

[thedaveformula]

thank you all for your replies, very helpful i am grateful thank you