Dropdown One Navigation Item 1 Navigation Item 2 Navigation Item 3 Navigation Item 4 Navigation Item 5 Dropdown Two Navigation Item 1 Navigation Item 2 Navigation Item 3 Navigation Item 4 Navigation Item 5
It looks like you are overcomplicating this. The fastest/easiest/safest method to put text over an image is to apply a background image in CSS.
Menu #4 on this page might help you:
http://www.cssplay.co.uk/menus/drop_examples.html
Or this menu with a background image:
http://www.projectseven.com/tutorials/navigation/auto_hide/workpage.htm
try in google u will better options and techniques to do this.