Bloody History and Frying Pans Part 2

Thanks to everyone who read and hazarded guesses as to which evil ruler I was thinking of. No one guessed it, yet, so I'm going to give you another post with some more clues. I'm participating in Elana Johnson's blogfest, so that post will go up tomorrow, but if no one's guessed it by Thursday, I'll tell you who he is, I promise.

The clues I'm going to give you today will be more specific, and yet not. They come in the form of a poem I wrote when I was in college. I learned about this dictator from a college history course and became fascinated with him. At the same time, I was also taking a poetry class. And you write what you know, right?  So anyway, here's the poem. It has enough cultural words that you may be able to figure him out more easily. Good luck!

(BTW, I named the poem after the ruler, so I'm totally not giving you the title. That would be an extremely blond move on my part!) :D

Lightning strikes the Kremlin Wall
A baby wails at birth.
Learns survival, climbs through intrigue, hides in deceit
The infant cries

Village-pillage; innocent-ravage
Young animals on spikes
The child laughs

Love. Matrimony.
Tranquility is almost skin deep.
Loss is rage, rage is frenzied brutality.
The building blocks of Red Square bleed.

Games of torture--play in Novgorod
Bodies swim through red water
The River is clogged.
Oiled frying pans and human skewers
Blood and steam and death and heat
The man laughs.

War against foe.
War against friend.
There is no friend or foe, only war.
The autocrat kills.

Son follows father.
Anger begets anger begets death.
Death of the royal line, by the king's own hand.
The father mourns.

No heir--will be the Trouble of the Times
The Tsar breathes harder.

Pieces in motion on a pious chessboard.
And the man dies.
                             --LKHill

That's it! Any more guesses?

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