I am one of those people who wants their code to be poetry. Ideas and logic expressed in the simplest most elegant terms. But when I left academia for industry and started working on a bigger project requiring coordination between many dozens of people, I realized that this approach is not conducive to making money. My idealism collided with the complexity of the real world. Software is a mess, but a beautiful mess. I now realize this is not necessarily a reflection of the skill of those who write it, rather the complexity inherent in the users domain.
Poetry is an artistic expression and so it can be, as you say, ideas expressed in simple and elegant terms. But it can also be opaque, complicated, confusing, awkward, and abrasive, and still be great poetry.
When working with others it is all the more important that the code be elegant and simple. That’s the only way to fight the always encroaching complexity.
