I am trying to delete appleworks, however, trash says the operation cant be completed becuase some items are locked. But those items are invisible. Im new, so I must be missing something.
Try dragging the files out of the trash that are locked and do "Get Info" on them by hitting Cmd+I. There should be an option to unlock the files so that they can be deleted.
You can go the "nuclear bomb" approach and delete it as root...it's always fun to exercise supreme power over your computer as root to have it do your will.