Too many posts cause slow load when paginating

I have about 10k posts and I made a page that lists all posts but it is paginated every 54posts. It gives 131 queries in 6.730 seconds which is pretty slow to load. Is there a way to make it load faster?

This is my functions page

<?php
/* Custom code goes below this line. */

add_theme_support( 'post-formats', array( 'aside', 'gallery' ) );
add_filter( 'use_default_gallery_style', '__return_false' );

/* Add the Javascript */
$path = get_stylesheet_directory_uri() .'/js/';
wp_enqueue_script('post-navigation', $path.'jquery.navigate.js', array('jquery'));

function catch_that_image() {
global $post, $posts;
$first_img = '';
ob_start();
ob_end_clean();


$transformed_content = apply_filters('the_content',$post->post_content);


$output = preg_match_all('/<img.+src=['"]([^'"]+)['"].*>/i', $transformed_content, $matches);
$first_img = $matches [1] [0];

if(empty($first_img)){ //Defines a default image
$first_img = "/images/default.jpg";
}
return $first_img;
}

function pagination($pages = '', $range = 4)
{  
     $showitems = ($range * 2)+1;  

     global $paged;
     if(empty($paged)) $paged = 1;

     if($pages == '')
     {
         global $wp_query;
         $pages = $wp_query->max_num_pages;
         if(!$pages)
         {
             $pages = 1;
         }
     }   

     if(1 != $pages)
     {
         echo "<div class="pagination"><span>Page ".$paged." of ".$pages."</span>";
         if($paged > 2 && $paged > $range+1 && $showitems < $pages) echo "<a href='".get_pagenum_link(1)."'>&laquo; First</a>";
         if($paged > 1 && $showitems < $pages) echo "<a href='".get_pagenum_link($paged - 1)."'>&lsaquo; Previous</a>";

         for ($i=1; $i <= $pages; $i++)
         {
             if (1 != $pages &&( !($i >= $paged+$range+1 || $i <= $paged-$range-1) || $pages <= $showitems ))
             {
                 echo ($paged == $i)? "<span class="current">".$i."</span>":"<a href='".get_pagenum_link($i)."' class="inactive">".$i."</a>";
             }
         }

         if ($paged < $pages && $showitems < $pages) echo "<a href="".get_pagenum_link($paged + 1)."">Next &rsaquo;</a>";  
         if ($paged < $pages-1 &&  $paged+$range-1 < $pages && $showitems < $pages) echo "<a href='".get_pagenum_link($pages)."'>Last &raquo;</a>";
         echo "</div>n";
     }
}

// This function should go in functions.php
function mam_posts_where ($where) {
   global $mam_global_where;
   if ($mam_global_where) $where .= " $mam_global_where";
   return $where;
}
add_filter('posts_where','mam_posts_where');

/* Custom code goes above this line. */
?>

And this is my page template

<?php
/*
Template Name: List
*/
?>

<?php get_header(); ?>

        <div id="container">
            <div id="content2" role="main">

<?php $paged = (get_query_var('paged')) ? get_query_var('paged') : 1;
$args = array( 'post_type' => 'post', 'posts_per_page' => 54, 'paged' => $paged );
$wp_query = new WP_Query($args);
while ( have_posts() ) : the_post(); ?>
<div class="seriesbox">
<a class="size-thumbnail" href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>"><img src="<?php echo catch_that_image() ?>"/></a>
<div class="seriestitle"><h2><?php the_title() ?></h2></div>
</div>
<?php endwhile; ?>

<!-- then the pagination links -->
<?php if (function_exists("pagination")) {
    pagination($additional_loop->max_num_pages);
} ?>

            </div><!-- #content -->
        </div><!-- #container -->

        <?php get_footer(); ?>