...and what if 
  Elvis had lived, would there have been no Kurt Cobain? 
  what if i'm writing for all the wrong reasons, 
  so badly out of time and focus that my message is muttled, 
  mottled by a myriad of conflicting assumptions? 
  what if Jesus had sinned, would Nixon have told us the 
              truth, 
  would Hitler have been merciful, would you? 
              and if things were different, would we be happier, 
  kinder, gentler, in a world that produces 
              naughty 900 numbers, serial killers, sandwiched 
                          between 
  birthdays and deathdays and lost dogs on the evening news? 
              and whaat if we stopped watching, wanting t.v., 
  stopped waiting for disasters, disorders, to happen? 
              the words we use, and what if the words we used 
                         were 
  wiser, more succienct to points, to the ponderous positions 
              that we make, would we not have to wonder, 
  have to banter about exactly where we stood or stand? 
  we've simply become encumbered, become left in utter 
                          shambles, 
              in a present frame of mind, thinking through things 
  slowly and feeling rather lowly, trapped within a time 
                          frame, 
              a present perfect time span, @WHAT 'Ifing" all the 
                          time, 
  that we never seem to bother to perceive another picture, 
              fuzzy, blotted, conjecture, dull pointing piece of 
                         min? 
  what if we thought and shuddered and shattered what had 
                          mattered, 
              or at least what we still think matters at the 
                          present time, 
  would we still stand here banding all together 
                                      in this present perfect crime?