The pianist is struggling to express these emotions and frustrations he’s experiencing. For most musicians, writing and creating music can be extremely therapeutic. It allows you to visualize and work through your own emotions and come to terms with them before you can express them to others. Yet this time is different than the others. The pianist’s music is doing nothing to sooth him; his palms spread out across the keys, trying vainly to find a way to work through this beast of worry and loathing that’s wormed its way into his head.

This line seems to represent Americans who have become aware of all the atrocities committed by their brothers-in-arms. So as the stuck prey, rattling around on a spiders web, would alert the spider of it’s presence and suffering, so too does the suffering of the atrocities at Hiroshima alert the American of what’s going on in the real world, the “web”.
The dark cave, in this instance, would refer to America during the aftermath of WW2 and the Cold War; blinded by nationalism, the Americans in their dark cave have no idea what’s actually going on in the real world, until the prey squirms around on the web, alerting those in the cave of their presence on the web.

This line relates to the pianist becoming aware of all the atrocities in the world, and suffering to try to come to terms with how his nation has contributed to those problems.

The pianist has become obsessed with the idea of expressing his emotions through his music. He spends countless hours sitting in front of his piano, his hands constantly creeping and crawling up and down the scales of piano notes.

The “heart” in this line may represent someone empathetic, or cognizant of the feelings and circumstances of others. The “mind” in this bar could stand for those who are cynical and corrupt in this world; or those who would use their mind to manipulate and take advantage of others.

“heart can spot mind” would be interpreted as an empathetic, just person, spotting out the corrupt and cold-hearted people in the world who only think with their minds.

“mind can rock earth” again follows this trend; Qwel may be stating how those same cold-hearted people are the ones who drop bombs on cities and commit acts of mass-violence simply because it’s “practical” or it might “scare the Russians”. Here we once again see a tie in with Hiroshima; the cold-hearted have rocked the earth with Atomic Bombs.

Qwel could possibly be metaphorically having a conversation with God here.Ivory is another way to represent white, so ivory fences could potentially represent white picket fences. If you compare that typically “american” image of white picket fences with the next part about “red hands and hammers” , you can see a comparison between American symbols, and communist USSR symbols (the sickle and hammer, color red), Qwel seems to be asking God about how America became so bold and proud by founding that on fear of communism after world War II.

This ties in with the metaphorical idea of this song being a representation of Hiroshima due to the concept that the bombings were tactically used as a show of force against the USSR, instigating the cold war. By “painting ivory fences” (the prominence of white picket fences is an American symbol, along with an increased sense of nationalism post world war II and into the cold war) with “red hands and hammers” (the fear of communism bolstered American nationalism and in some ways helped spur on the development of scientific research in the U.S.), Qwel is pointing out how the fear of communism has effected America, and how the bombing of Hiroshima ties into that.

the outer phoenix in this case, is some sort of bright color on the mural which is blended into another brighter shade of the same color within itself. Sort of like this.

Metaphorically speaking, I believe that the “outer phoenix” represents the powerful, engulfing fire of the explosions above Hiroshima/Nagasaki. As the bombs erupted, tens of thousands were wiped off the face of the earth, their souls, or “inner phoenix” qwel is referring to, comes out due to death, and joins the “outer phoenix”, the flames.

the only metaphorical link I can find to Hiroshima is the industrial aspect and overall crowded, monotonous, urban areas. Man’s Canvas Masterpiece would theoretically be the most industrialized, cookie-cutter living space imaginable. The painter was able to manifest that image into his mural. The bombing of Hiroshima captured this image as welw; it occurred on a day like any other day, in the midst of peoples' daily routines. An average, normal day, forever frozen in the memories of explosions in the sky, and decimated humanity.